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Men of Old Greece 



BY 

JENNIE HALL 

Author of "Four Old Greeks ," and "Viking Tales" 



WITH TWELVE FULL-PAGE PLATES AND 

FORTY-THREE ILLUSTRATIONS 

IN THE TEXT 



BOSTON 

LITTLE, BROWN, AND COMPANY 

1906 



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Copyright, 1905, 
By Little, Brown, and Company. 



All rights reserved 



Published November. 1905 



Printer* 

8. J. Parkhill & Co., Boston, 0. S. A. 



CONTENTS 



Pronunciation of Greek Words . 


PAGE 

ix 


Foreword ...... 


1 


Leonidas 


9 


Themistocles 


. 89 


Phidias and the Parthenon 


. 169 


Socrates . 


. 219 



LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS 



FULL PAGE ILLUSTRATIONS 

Ruins of the Parthenon Frontispiece 

PAGE 

Cliffs and Coast of Greece 2 

Running Track and Gymnasium in Sparta ... 34 

Sparta, Mount Taygetus and the River Eurotas . . 57 

Market Place of Sparta 86 

Market Place of Athens 102 

Athene 148 

The Acropolis of Athens 164 

Greek Horsemen in the Panathenaic Procession. From 

the Frieze of the Parthenon 186 

The Acropolis Restored 211 

Interior of the Parthenon . . . . . . 216 

Ruins of the Temple of Zeus at Athens .... 250 

ILLUSTRATIONS IN THE TEXT 

Page 

Greek Costume ........ 12 

Heracles 27 

vii 



PAGE 

Achilles in Battle 28 

An Athenian Coin 31 

The Wrestlers 37 

Interior of the Gymnasium at Sparta .... 40 

Spartan Girls with Cithara 50 

Artemis 56 

Thermopylae 65 

Persian Soldiers 71 

Ares Descending to Battle 75 

Remains of the Pnyx . 92 

A Persian Ambassador 95 

Themistocles 98 

Miltiades Ill 

A Soldier of Marathon 118 

Jugs Decorated by "Vase Painters 121 

A Soldier of ^Egina 126 

One of the Temples of Poseidon 131 

An Offering to Apollo at the Temple of Delphi . . 140 

The Athenians Fleeing to their Ships .... 145 
Xerxes, the Great King, on his Throne . . . .155 

Piraeus ; Athens in the Distance ; the Long Walls . . 160 
Exile of Themistocles . . . . . .166 

Greek Girls Dancing 172 

Athene 173 

Poseidon 175 

Athenian Warriors, wearing Chitons . . . ■ . 179 
Athene. Prom an Early Vase Painting . . . .182 

Greek Chariot 184 

Women of Athens at the Panathenaic Festival . . 187 

Pericles 194 

viii 



PAGE 

Zeus 200 

Hephaestus 208 

The Fates. From the Pediment of the Parthenon . 212 

East End of the Parthenon 214 

Interior of a Greek School 228 

Boys with Lyre 230 

Homer 232 

Consulting the Oracle at Delphi . . . . . 237 

Apollo with Lyre 242 

Socrates 244 

Young Athenian Soldiers 247 

iEsculapius 263 



PRONUNCIATION OF GREEK WORDS 



Achilles (a kil' ez) 
A crop' o lis 
Aegina (e ji' na) 
Aesculapius (es cu la pi 

us) 
Ag a mem' non 
Al cam' e ne§ 
Al ca' nor 

Alcestor (al kes' tor) 
Alcibiades (al si hi' a 

deez) 
Ale me' nor 
An ax an' der 
A pol' lo 
A' re§ 
Ar' gos 

Aristides (ar is ti' deez) 
A ris' ton 
Ar' te mis 
A the' ne 
At' ti ca 
Au' go 
Cer a mi' cus 
Ce phis' sus 



Chaerephon (ker' e fon) 
Charicles (kar' 1 kleez) 
chiton (ki' ton) 
chlamys (kla' mis) 
Cle om' bro tus 
Cle' on 
Cor' inth 
Cre' on 
Cri' to 

Delphi (d61' fi) 
Dem' 1 pho 
Dl o ny' sus 
Erechtheum (er ek the' 

urn) 
Euboea (ii be' a) 
Eu ro' tas 
Gy lip' pus 
hel' ot 

Hephaestus (he f es' tus) 
Heracle§ (her' a klez) 
He' re 

Hermes (her' mez) 
Hetoemocles (he tern' o 

kleez) 



Pronunciation of Greek Words 



himation (hi ma' shun) 

Hip' pi as 

Hy met' tus 

Ic ti' nus 

I'on 

I'ren 

I'ris 

Lacedaemon (Las e de' 

mon) 
Le on' 1 das 
Lichas (II' kas) 
Ly cur' gus 
Ly san'der 
MSr' a thbn 
Me gis' ti as 
Me' no 
met' 6 pe 

Miltiades (mil ti a deez) 
Odysseus (o dis' soos) 
O lym' pi a 
O lym' pus 
Pan ath e na' ic 
Pau sa' ni as 
Pe nel' o pe 
Pen tel' i cus 
Pericles (per 1 kleez) 



Pheido (phi' do) 
Phidias (ftd X as) 
Pheidippides (phi dip' 

pi deez) 
Pho' nax 

Piraeus (pi re' us) 
Pi san' der 
Plataea (pla te' a) 
Pnyx (niks) 
Poseidon (po si' don) 
SS,1' a mis 

Socrates (s5k ra teez) 
Soph ro nis' cus 
Taygetus (ta ij' e tus) 
Thebes (thebz) 
Themistocles (the mis' 

to kleez) 
Thermopylae (ther mop' 

ele) 
Theseus (the' soos) 
Thespiae (thes' pi e) 
Troezen (tre' zen) 
Xerxes (Zerks' eez) 
Ze'no 
Zeus (zoos) 



Men of Old Greece 



FOREWORD 

That old Greece was a lovely land. 
Everywhere lines of peaked mountains 
looked at each other across pretty little val- 
leys. Through the valleys sparkled small 
rivers. Beside the rivers stretched green 
olive groves, golden wheat fields, and garden- 
spots. Here and there, among the fields, 
shone white cities, with high walls and twist- 
ing streets. From the mountain-foot down 
to the flat valley lay hills, great and small. 
Their sides were streaked with vineyards 
and dotted with whitewashed cabins. On 
the mountain-side strayed sheep, watched 
by their shepherd, who was piping to him- 
self in a cool cave. Every mountain-top 
looked off to the purple sea near at hand. 



2 Men of Old Greece 

This sea was dotted with ships and with 
rocky islands. 

Up and down these islands and valleys 
and hillsides walked the beautiful Greeks. 
What made them beautiful ? Their smooth 
skin, well rubbed with olive oil; their 
muscles, trained in the gymnasium; their 
shining eyes, happy with looking upon sea 
and mountain and statue and temple; and 
their clothes helped, too, for these were of 
bright colors and hung in gently moving 
folds. The busy vine-grower among his 
grapes, the shepherd walking the rough 
mountain, the sailor on his ship, the car- 
penter in his shop, wore short chitons, that 
left arms and legs bare and free. In the 
cool evening they clasped short capes about 
their shoulders. In the hot sun they tied 
broad hats on their heads. For a walk on a 
stony road they tied open sandals under 
their feet. The idle gentlemen of the cities 
threw about themselves himations, — great 



Foreword 3 

shawls, of thin wool or linen, that fell in soft 
folds from neck to feet. The women wore 
long, loose robes of the same sort. 

Above this lovely land, and caring for it, 
were the gods. They lived in Olympus, a 
shining city among the stars. A golden 
wall, with clanging gates, went around 
it. Inside were sloping green meadows, 
sprinkled with wonderful flowers. Sitting 
among the flowers and grass were houses of 
gold and silver, the homes of the gods. On 
a little hilltop was a golden throne. Here 
sat Zeus, the king of the gods, the lord of 
the world. By his side sat Here, his queen. 
Around him stood the company of the gods, 
looking down upon the world. 

There was Apollo, the beautiful, who by 
day drove the chariot of the sun across the 
sky. At night he sat here in Olympus, at 
the feast of the gods. He played on his 
lyre and sang such songs as common men 
have never heard. And there was Athene, 



4 Men of Old Greece 

in her armor of bronze. She took care of 
all the battles of the world, and she taught 
women to weave and men to work with 
tools. And there was Poseidon, who some- 
times lived in a cave at the bottom of the 
sea. He made storms on the sea, and he 
calmed them. There was Hermes, who 
sent gentle winds to carry ships to the right 
port, and who flew through the air with the 
messages of Zeus. There was the boy-god, 
Dionysus, who sent dew and warmth to 
ripen the grapes of all the world. And there 
was Artemis, who drove the silver chariot of 
the moon and sometimes hunted the deer in 
the wild wood. There was the blacksmith 
god, Hephaestus. He could make statues 
of gold, that moved and walked about. 
There was Ares, the fierce god of war. 
And there was Demeter, who ripened the 
grain all over the world. 

All these gods were like men and women, 
but taller, more beautiful and more wonder- 



Foreword 5 

ful. They could never die. Their eyes 
looked to the farthest edges of the world. 
No man could hide from them. They 
walked through the sky as quickly as 
thought. In the wink of an eye they could 
change from a god to a ragged shepherd lad 
or an eagle. Life was very gay and easy 
for them. And yet they had work to do. 
If Apollo had idled away a month in 
Olympus, the trees and plants and men 
down in the world would have died in the 
darkness. If Here had forgotten to visit 
the earth, no little babies would have come 
to happy mothers and fathers. If Dionysus 
had neglected his work, the grapevines and 
the pomegranate trees and the melon-vines 
all over the world would have died, and 
men would have been hungry for fruit, and 
thirsty for wine. If Poseidon had been 
angry and left the sea to storm, thousands 
of ships would have been wrecked, and 
sailors drowned. So the gods were a com- 



6 Men of Old Greece 

pany of busy people, flitting about from 
city to city, from field to field, from sea to 
sea, and back to Olympus, to rest and feast 
and play. But they took care that men 
should not see them on those visits. 

Now the Greeks down in the world loved 
these gods for their kindness. They wished 
to thank them. They wished to make them 
gifts. But they could not think how to do 
it; for they never saw the gods during their 
visits to the earth. Neither did they know 
what to send. 

"The gods do not eat common food," 
they said, "but the sweet odors of the world 
are pleasant to them. Would they not like 
a taste of this meat and these fruits that 
they have given us? How shall we send 
them so far?" 

Then they saw the smoke rising above 
the fire, above the house-top, above the 
trees, up into the sky. 

"That is the way," they said. 



Foreword 7 

So they built fires on little piles of sod. 
They soaked the sod with sweet-smelling 
wine. They put meat and fruits into the 
fires. The smoke caught the odors of wine, 
of crisping meat, and of toasting fruits, 
and whirled them up through the sky to 
Olympus. There the gods breathed the 
perfume and smiled down upon the blazing 
altars and the lifted hands. 

Sometimes people built marble houses, 
or temples, around these altars. Here the 
gods might come to rest from their work in 
the world. Here people might come to 
bring gifts to the gods. 

In such a land, among such people, 
under the eyes of these gods, lived the men 
of this book. 



LEONIDAS 



LEONID AS 

TT was in one of the soldiers' huts at 
Sparta. Fifteen men, young and old, 
sat at mess. The heavy table before them 
had no cloth and few dishes. The seats 
were backless benches. The ceiling and 
walls of the hut were of rough, round 
logs. The floor was of dirt. Against one of 
the walls leaned long spears. The men 
were clothed in coarse gray chitons. There 
was no shine of gold or flash of color to 
make the place beautiful. But there were 
some things there more beautiful than gold 
or gay cloaks, — the men's broad shoulders, 
the working muscles of their brown arms, 
their high-lifted heads and tumbled hair. 

While the others were eating, an old man 
spoke. 



12 



Men of Old Greece 



"I heard to-day of a good deed," he 
said. "It was of young Lysander there, 
our messmate." 





GREEK COSTUME 



The youth wears a short chiton under a chlaniys or cloak: 
the man is wearing a hunation 



As all eyes turned upon Lysander, he 
flushed and looked hard into his red bowl 
of broth. 

"Three nights ago he went hunting on 



Leonidas 13 

Mount Taygetus," the old man went on. 
"During the night Cleombrotus happened 
to pass by a deep rock-pit. He saw some- 
thing move down there, and he called out 
'Hello!' Nobody answered. He peered 
down and saw that it was a man in the 
pit. 'A bad fall,' said Cleombrotus. 'I 
will let down my hunting net and pull you 
out.' The answer came: 'You waste time. 
Does it take two men to get one man out 
of a hole?' So Cleombrotus came away 
chuckling. He knew Lysander's voice. I 
do not know how the lad got out, but I do 
know that he did not come back until to-day, 
and I saw that the skin was torn from his 
knees and toes and palms." 

Another man struck his hand upon the 
table. 

"Done like a soldier and a Spartan!" he 
cried. 

Lysander glanced up at him shyly with 
happy eyes. 



14 Men of Old Greece 

Four little boys sat wide-eyed among these 
soldiers. The old man looked at the small- 
est one. 

" What do you think of Lysander's deed, 
Leonidas?" he asked. 

The boy drew in his breath quickly. 

"I wish I had done it," he said. 

The man sitting next the boy clapped him 
on the shoulder. 

"So this is your first day away from 
home?" he laughed. 

"Yes," answered Leonidas. 

"Well, what do you think of our mess?" 

" It is like being a soldier. I like it." 

" Do you know why you came here ? " 

"Because Sparta sent me." 

"But why did Sparta send you?" 

"She needs soldiers." 

"Yes," the old man said with flashing 
eyes; "and we all are born only to be her 
soldiers. Is there a finer thing in the world 
than to fight for Sparta ? " 



Leonidas 15 

"Did you cry this morning when you 
left home, Leonidas?" another man asked 
teasingly. 

"No. Why should I cry? I have come 
to be a soldier. Spartans do not cry." 

"But you did not like to leave your 
mother?" 

"Sparta is my mother. And Sparta lives 
in the soldiers' huts. I have come to live 
with her. That is what my mother told me." 

A man reached his hand across the table 
and said, smiling : 

"Give me your hand, lad. Well said! 
But your manners need mending. Your 
mother has spoiled you. Boys should listen, 
not talk. A boy's great virtue is modesty." 

The men rose from the table. It was 
night. They took their spears from the 
wall and walked away home. The lanes 
were dark and narrow, but the men carried 
no torches; for the Spartans had long ago 
made this law: "Men shall alwavs walk in 



16 Men of Old Greece 

the city without torches, for in war they must 
march and scout in the dark." 

The boys were still in the hut. One of 
the men, too, had stayed. It was his duty 
to look after the boys of Sparta. Now he 
called these lads to him and said: 

"Remember Lichas' words: 'A boy's 
great virtue is modesty.' When you are 
with older men, your tongue cannot teach 
them, so let your ears learn. For that pur- 
pose you visit the men's mess. There you 
will hear more wisdom in one breath than 
you can speak in a whole day. Now report 
to your Iren. Remember — modesty! Your 
eyes on the ground! The gods give you 
sweet rest!" 

The boys walked away slowly, their lips 
closed, their eyes turned to the ground. 
They went to another hut. It had but one 
large room. Here sat a young man in a 
heavy oak chair. A burning pine-torch was 
thrust into the wall above his head. The 



Leonidas 17 

smoky light flickered dimly on perhaps 
twenty boys standing about. They were 
from seven to eighteen years old. A grown 
man leaned against the doorcasing, spear in 
hand. As the four boys came in, they 
walked up to the young man in the chair and 
gave their names, and said: 

"Returned from Lichas' mess, Iren." 

Iren was a name that meant captain of 
a boy's company. 

" We are all in now," said the Iren. "Give 
us a song, Anaxander." 

Anaxander took a lyre down from its peg 
on the wall. He ran his fingers over the 
strings and sang this song: 

"I hope to fall in battle, sword in hand, 
For men will sing and women praise me then. 
'Here lies a Spartan hero dead,' they'll say; 
'Let Sparta build for him a splendid tomb. 
And on the tomb his statue high shall stand. 
And Sparta's men and lads shall come to see 



18 Men of Old Greece 

How well our Sparta loves the strong and 
brave.' 



"Then raise the battle-cry and draw your 

swords, 
Press close together, comrades, into line. 
Now sword and spear and death for Sparta's 

sake! 

" But all men hate the coward that turns and 

flees ; 
From that most shameful day he longs for 

death, 
For boys and women point at him and sneer, 
And men all turn their heads aside and scowl. 
He slinks from door to door to beg his bread. 
He dares not show his face in Sparta's streets. 
At last he dies of shame and finds no grave. 

"Then raise the battle-cry and draw your 

swords, 
Press close together, comrades, into line. 



Leonidas 19 

Now sword and spear and death for Sparta's 
sake!" 

"Sparta, Sparta! A soldier's death for 
me!" shouted all the lads. 

" A good song," said the Iren. " You shall 
teach our new boy, Leonidas, to sing and to 
play the lyre. To-morrow night I will see 
whether he has learned his strings. Leonidas, 
it is as much the duty of a soldier to sing as 
it is to fight. For how can he pray to the 
gods if he cannot sing ? That puts courage 
into men's hearts." 

Then he turned to another boy. 

"Alcanor, what is the best thing in 
Sparta ?" 

The boy thought for a moment, and then 
answered : 

"A hero's tomb. For it has in it a man 
who was brave, and it teaches other men to 
be brave." 



20 Men of Old Greece 

"Well answered," said the Iren. "Pau- 
sanias, what makes a man brave?" 

"Love of Sparta makes men brave," 
cried Pausanias. 

"A bad answer!" said the Iren. "It is 
the laws of Sparta that make men brave. 
For do not the laws say that boys shall not 
live at home among the women, but in camp 
with soldiers? Do the laws not say that 
men shall walk without torches through the 
dark? Do the laws not say that cowards 
shall be punished? And is this not what 
makes our men brave ? Come here. You 
shall be punished for your bad answer. Let 
this help you to remember what makes men 
brave." 

As he said that he bit Pausanias' thumb. 
The thumb turned white under the teeth, 
but the boy did not wince. Then the Iren 
turned to some one else. 

"Zeno, why should you steal flour for our 
bread to-morrow ?" 



Leonidas 21 

"Because I am to be one of Sparta's 
soldiers," Zeno answered. "And when our 
army is in the enemy's country, there is no 
other way to get food." 

"Good," said the Iren. "Go and do it. 
But if you are caught, you shall be punished. 
And if you get no flour, you shall not eat 
to-morrow." 

As Zeno went out of the door, the Iren 
said to the others : 

" Off to the Eurotas ! If you do not want 
to sleep on the bare floor to-night, come back 
with your arms full of rushes. And be sure 
that you use no knife to cut them. A 
soldier's hands must take a few scratches." 

So the boys scampered off through the 
dark to the river. Only the Iren and the 
man were left in the hut. 

"Well done," said the man. "But in 
one thing you made a mistake. Pausanias' 
answer was a good one. The love of Sparta 
does make men brave. Often in a battle 



22 Men of Old Greece 

have I thought: 'Sparta is my mother.' 
Then my arm has grown strong, and my 
heart bold. Your answer, also, was true. 
But Sparta needs thoughtful officers. Let 
this remind you to think twice before you 
punish a boy again." 

He struck the Iren across the legs with a 
leather strap. 

"I will try to remember," the young man 
answered. 

The other nodded and put his hand on 
the Iren's shoulder. 

"The gods send sweet sleep to you!" he 
said. Then he walked away. 

Soon the boys came straggling back. They 
threw their rushes down in a corner or next 
to the wall of the hut. Then, without un- 
dressing, they lay down upon them to sleep. 
There was nothing but the damp rushes to 
throw over themselves, if they grew cold. 
But every boy was proud of that, thinking, 

"A soldier has nothing to cover him." 



Leonidas 23 

Leonidas came in among the last. His 
hands were cut and bleeding, but he thought, 

"I have to do this to be a soldier." 

This thought made him happy. 

At last everybody in the hut was asleep. 
And in other cabins all about, people were 
sleeping. Some camp-fires burned. Guards 
in armor, with spears in their hands, walked 
up and down. It was like a great camp in 
time of war. Yet there was no war and 
no fear of it. The men of Sparta always 
lived like this. They were always soldiers. 

The next morning the boys were called at 
daybreak. There was no dressing, for they 
had slept in their clothes. There was only 
a run to the river and a cold plunge and a 
rough combing of hair with fingers. Then 
they ran back to the camp-ground. The 
older men were gathering there, every one 
with his spear. Many slaves were working 
about, building fires. 

The different Irens called their boys to- 



24 Men of Old Greece 

gether. Twenty or thirty companies stood 
in soldiers' order. 

"Line up for the foot-race," called the 
Iren of Leonidas' group. 

After the running, the Iren called to one 
of the larger boys : 

"Come teach these little boys to box." 

All over the field other companies were 
doing the same thing. The men walked 
among them, looking on. They gave praise 
when a boy did well. They stopped the 
game when it was wrong, and showed the 
right way to do. It was a busy, noisy, 
happy place. 

After the boys had played for some time, 
a trumpet blew. Like a flash, all the men 
fell into line, bodies straight, heads up. 
Every man wore a red chiton that came to 
his knees. His feet and legs were bare. On 
his head shone a tall, egg-shaped helmet of 
bronze. A long shield hung on his left arm. 
On it was painted a great letter A. It stood 



Leonidas 25 

for "Lacedaemon," the country of Sparta. 
At every man's left side hung his short broad- 
sword. In his right hand he carried two or 
three lances. Their points glittered above 
his head. 

By the side of the long line of men stood 
the officers. They passed down the order 
to march. Next came a quick command to 
swing into fours. 

"That," said a boy to Leonidas, "is the 
way they march off to war." 

Then the officers called out : 

"Battle order, march!" 

The eight fours at the head of the line 
stood still. The others marched up to the 
side of these, and stood. There were all the 
fighting men of Sparta, in deep, close line, 
ready to meet a foe. 

"Sparta, Sparta!" shouted the boys who 
were watching. 

The men drilled for an hour or more. 
Then the trumpet blew again, and they all 



26 Men of Old Greece 

walked away to their huts for breakfast. 
The slaves had it ready on the tables. It 
was not a rich meal. At every man's place 
was a red bowl of black broth. In the 
middle of the table were two large baskets 
of hard bread, a basket of fresh figs, and 
cheese on a wooden plate. There was no 
talking at first, for the men were hungry; 
but later it began. At Leonidas' table the 
old man who had told about Lysander 
spoke : 

"Do you know why it is, boys, that we 
Spartans drill like this every day?" 

"Because Spartans love to be soldiers," 
answered one of the lads. 

"So we do," said the old man; and his 
eyes glowed. " But there is another reason, 
too. Hundreds of years ago the foster- 
father of Heracles was king in this southern 
country. But his enemy drove him out, and 
he fled north. Now Heracles' sons and his 
sons' sons never forgot that long ago one of 



Leonidas 27 

their family had been king in this southern 
country. After a long time they said, 'We 
will go back to our old home.' So great hosts 
of them came, some by land, some by sea. 
This country was already full of people, liv- 
ing on farms and in cities. ■— -r ;>-. : 
But the children of Her- 
acles were mighty men, 
taller, stronger and braver 
than these people. So 
they fought with these men 
and won and made them 

Slaves. HERACLES 

"The brave children of Heracles took the 
land and sat on the throne. These Helots 
who cook our breakfast and plow our fields 
and grind our flour and tend our cattle and 
make our wine and build our houses, are the 
far-off sons of the people who fought with 
those children of Heracles. Those men who 
live on the mountains and herd our sheep 
and work in our mines and smelt our iron 




28 Men of Old Greece 

and make our swords and cut our timber, 
are the children of the men who ran away. 
And we Spartans are the sons of those 
mighty children of Heracles. We are the 
lords of this land, the masters of these Helots. 




ACHILLES IN BATTLE 



"The Helots do not forget their free days. 
They hate us. They would be glad to drive 
us out. They are many more than we are. 
That is why a Spartan never walks without 
his spear. That is why we drill every day. 
That is why Sparta is a great camp. That 
is why we work to make ourselves good 
soldiers. A soldier must have strong mus- 



Leonidas 29 

cles; so we exercise in hard games. A 
soldier must not be fat; so we eat little. A 
soldier must have time to drill; so we leave 
our work to the Helots. They are good laws 
that make us do these things. I think that 
Heracles must be proud as he looks down on 
us, his children, strong and brave." 

During that afternoon the Iren of Leoni- 
das' company called his boys together, and 
said: 

"To-morrow we struggle at the Plane-tree 
Grove. Let us go now to ask Achilles for 
help. Bring gifts for him." 

The boys ran to their hut. There seemed 
little there for gifts. But some brought 
pieces of hard bread saved from their break- 
fast. 

"It is joy to go hungry and give to 
Achilles," one said. 

Another brought a hunting spear. 

"Achilles will like the smell of blood on 
this," he said. 



30 Men of Old Greece 

One boy brought a wolf's head. 

"Ah!" cried the Iren; "there is a gift 
that will please Achilles." 

One was carrying a piece of iron as big as 
his hand. 

"I suppose Achilles does not care for 
money," said he; " but this has a good name 
on it — Lacedsemon." 

The Iren led a lamb. 

They started across the country. The 
boy who had the piece of money told a story. 

"I saw an Athenian in the market-place 
yesterday. He was as gay as a peacock. 
His hair was oiled and perfumed. He had a 
gold grasshopper pinned in it. His hima- 
tion had a gold border. He had sandals on 
his feet. As though they were too good to 
touch the ground! Bah! He carried a little 
leather bag in his hand. I saw our good Ion 
looking at him and curling his lip. At last 
he said: 'Athenian, what is that you carry 
with so tender a hand?' 'My money-bag,' 




Leonidas 31 

answered the stranger. He opened it and 
took out a little piece of gold and held it up. 
'Is it not beautiful?' he said. 'There is 
nothing in all Sparta that shines like that. 
It would buy this 
whole poor city.' Ion 
looked at the man's 
foolish clothes, and 
smiled. 'No,' he 

AN ATHENIAN COIN 

said; 'its owner 

would never spend it for anything so well 
worth having.' Then he turned and walked 
away. I went with him. 'Do you see, Hip- 
pias,' he said to me, 'why we do not have 
gold money in Sparta ? Can you imagine a 
man's carrying our iron money about and 
petting it ? Surely our Lycurgus was wise. 
He saved us from being fools.' " 

"There was only one Lycurgus," said the 
Iren; " that is why there is only one Sparta." 

Soon the boys came to the temple of 
Achilles. A jar of salt water stood at the 



32 Men of Old Greece 

door. As the boys passed it, they dipped 
their hands into it. 

"We must go into the houses of gods and 
heroes with clean hands," men said in those 
days. 

Inside the door stood the priest in long 
white robes. A garland of flowers was on 
his head. The Iren said to him : 

"We wish to get Achilles' help in our 
struggle to-morrow. We have brought this 
lamb to his table. We have other gifts for 
him." 

"Achilles, the warrior, is glad to receive 
brave lads of Sparta in his house," said the 
priest. 

He led the way to the altar. The boys 
laid their gifts upon it. The priest raised 
his hands and sang in a clear voice : 

"Achilles, mighty warrior, brave and strong, 
Oh ! hear us in your happy island home ; 
Oh ! smile on us and give us what we ask — 



Leonidas 33 

To win the game and make our Sparta 
proud." 

Then flutes played shrill music. The 
priest killed the lamb and laid pieces of the 
meat on the altar-fire. Other pieces slaves 
cooked at another fire. They spread a 
table. All the boys sat down and ate with 
the priest. 

"Achilles is our guest," the Iren said. 
"See the smoke curling up to him from the 
altar ! It is a great thing to feast with such a 
man." 

After the meal the boys walked back to 
Sparta. On the way they talked of the 
struggle to-morrow. 

"We prove to-morrow whether we are 
good sons of Sparta," said the Iren. "I 
pray not to see a look of shame on my father's 
face. If we lose to-morrow, you know what 
it will say for me, your Iren." 

"Never fear," cried Anaxander. "There 



34 Men of Old Greece 

is not a coward among us. If we lose, we 
can die. That will take away the shame." 

On the next day the boys went to the 
Plane-tree Grove. There were walks and 
race-courses and gymnasium buildings. 
The fine old trees cast a pleasant shade. 
The boys ran down the broad walks. 

"The bridge of Heracles!" they shouted. 
"Heracles is ours." 

A little round island was in the middle of 
the grove. A broad moat full of water went 
around it. A bridge crossed the moat at 
each side of the island. On one bridge 
stood a statue of Heracles; on the other 
stood a statue of Lycurgus, the law-giver, 
the father of Sparta. The boys of Leon- 
idas' company ran to the bridge of Heracles, 
the other boys to the other bridge. They 
had cast lots the night before to see where 
they should stand. Men came hurrying from 
temple and gymnasium and shaded walks. 
All the Spartans were there to see what lads 




CO s*. 



Leonidas 35 

were brave and who were well drilled. They 
crowded to the edge of the moat. Some 
went upon the bridges behind the boys. 

At a signal the two companies ran to- 
gether. They met in the middle of the 
island. Then began a pushing. The game 
was for one side to push the other side into 
the water. At first they formed in solid 
blocks and pushed all together. But neither 
block moved. So they stood straining. 
Then different boys began to strike out with 
their fists. Some butted with their heads. 
Others rammed with their shoulders. The 
crowd broke up into couples, pushing, box- 
ing, wrestling, falling, jumping up. 

All this time the men on the shores and 
bridges were calling out: 

"The boys of Heracles! Well struck, 
Hippias! Lycurgus! The boys of Lycur- 
gus! To the water!" 

Two boys were struggling near the bridge. 
The boy of Heracles was getting the worse of 



3G Men of Old Greece 

it. At last he broke away and ran toward 
the bridge. Then all the men hooted at 
him: 

"Coward! Shame, shame! You are no 
son of Sparta! Shame!" 

They closed together and stopped him. 
A man pushed to the front. He caught the 
boy by the shoulders. 

"You are mad!" he cried. "It is better 
to die than to be a coward. I should be 
proud to carry you from here to your grave. 
But no coward shall ever call me father. 
Back, Damon, and show whose blood is in 
your veins." And he pushed him toward 
the island. 

The boy looked at his father for a minute. 
Then his white face flushed red. He 
clenched his teeth and turned and ran at his 
opponent. He caught him around the waist 
and threw him. Then he dragged him 
along the ground toward the moat. But 
the other boy twisted and struck out at every 



Leonidas 37 

step. So sometimes one was down, and 
sometimes the other. Sometimes both were 
rolling on the ground. Their arms were 
bruised, their legs were scratched. But at 




THE WRESTLERS 



last Damon picked the boy up on his hip 
and swung him and threw him into the 
water. Then all those men on the bridges 
gave a great shout. 

"Good, good, Damon! Sparta is proud 



38 Men of Old Greece 

of you. " And they clapped the boy's father 
on the shoulder. 

Damon had got his courage now. He did 
not stop. He ran to two other struggling 
boys and lent a hand. 

The same things were happening all over 
the island. Boys were scattered about by 
twos or threes, pushing, dragging, wrestling. 
Now and then was a splash, when some one 
went into the water. Then all that was left 
for that one to do was to swim across and 
stand dripping on the other shore, watching 
his friends. One by one they were pushed 
in ; sometimes a boy of Lycurgus, sometimes 
of Heracles, but most often of Lycurgus. 
At last only five boys were left on the island. 
Four of them were of Heracles. Then the 
four gave a shout and ran at the one and 
pushed him in and ran to the bridge, 
shouting: 

"Victory, victory!" 



Leonidas 39 

"Heracles! The boys of Heracles!" 
shouted the men. 

They ran to meet the four boys. They 
lifted them upon their shields and went 
shouting up and down the walks. 

"The heroes of Sparta," they cried. 

The other boys of their company went 
dancing around them. 

"Our heroes," they shouted; "the favor- 
ites of Achilles! He is our friend. Smile 
down, O Heracles!" 

Lysander was one who was carried high 
on a shield. His face was pale. His lips 
were shut hard. His left arm hung broken. 
But his eyes were wide and shining with joy. 
What of his broken arm ! Sparta was proud 
of him. 

Damon, who at first had tried to run away, 
was another who was carried on a shield. 
His father walked behind him. He looked 
proudly at his son. 

Leonidas had been pushed into the water. 



40 Men oj Old Greece 

He was only seven years old, and it was his 
first game. But he had not been afraid. 
He had done his best. Now Ion came to 
him. 

"You did well, lad," he said. 

He held out his hand, and Leonidas took 
it. 

"Come with me," the old man said. 
"Let us walk about the city. There are 
many things to see." 

Leonidas looked up proudly at Ion. It 
was good to hold that old man's hand. It 
was good to get his smile. He was a sena- 
tor, — a great man and a wise one. He gave 
advice to the kings. Here he was talking 
to a little boy. He was saying: 

"You have done such good work to-day 
that I want to show you the statue of a man 
who did still better things in a game. It is 
pleasant, to an old man to see lads brave and 
quick and strong, with straight, tough 
bodies. Years ago mv own bov won at the 



Leonidas 41 

Plane-tree Grove. I was more proud then 
than I should have been to see him king. 
Some of us never can be kings, but we can be 
soldiers. But your grandfather was a king. 
We expect great things of you." 

The streets they were walking down were 
strange looking. They were like country 
lanes. A footpath wound through the grass. 
On either side were houses. They were 
made of squared logs, unpainted, and brown 
with age. The rough marks of the axe 
showed. The roof was flat and low. One 
wide door opened in the front. Around 
every house were wheat fields and gardens, 
with grapevines, olive trees, pomegranate 
trees, bee-hives. Slaves were working there. 

"I myself have never been out of Sparta," 
Ion said, "and I am glad of it. But I once 
talked with a man from Athens. That is a 
city north of us. From what he said I 
thought Athens must be a poor place. To 
begin with, they have a high wall around 



42 Men of Old Greece 

their city. As though the people were pigs, 
to be fenced in! And besides, it shows 
that they are afraid, to protect themselves 
with a wall. Our good swords and right 
arms are our wall. No enemy can break 
through them. Inside of their little walls 
the Athenians crowd all their people. That 
leaves no room for gardens. I do not see 
how those men can breathe. See our green 
fields and trees! See the good breeze of 
Zeus playing in them! We have room to 
stretch ourselves, and air to breathe. O 
Sparta, Sparta, beautiful strong mother!" 

Leonidas looked up shyly and blushed. 

"I shall fight for her some time," he said. 
" Perhaps I shall die for her." 

"There is no greater good fortune," Ion 
answered. 

He stopped now before a statue. It was 
of a man. His right foot was pushed before 
him. He was bent forward. He was 
reaching out with his arms. A fierce frown 



Leonidas 43 

was on his brow. The muscles stood out on 
his slender bare body. 

"Oh!" cried Leonidas; "he would win 
at the Plane-tree Grove." 

"That," Ion said, "is Hetoemocles. For 
twenty years he was the best wrestler in 
Greece, and that means in the world. Five 
different times he went across the mountains 
to the great games at Olympia. The best 
men from all the cities of Greece were there. 
They wrestled with him, but he never lost. 
From every game he brought home an olive 
crown. The people of Sparta had this 
statue made in his honor. It is such men 
as this that make Sparta famous and strong. 
You began well to-day. Perhaps I shall 
live to see your statue beside his." 

A mist came into Leonidas' eyes when he 
heard that. The blood rushed into his face. 

"I cannot hope for that," he said, "but I 
will try not to make Sparta ashamed. " 

They walked on down the street. Farther 



44 Men of Old Greece 

on the houses were close together. There 
were statues between them instead of gar- 
dens, — Apollo here, Zeus there, farther on 
Dionysus, across the street a victor of 
Olympia, some old king, a great battle hero. 
Ion had something to say of every one as they 
passed. 

"It is good for you to come often and see 
these gods and these great men," he said. 
"You must not make them ashamed. 
Great men have walked this ground and 
loved it. Long ago Menelaus was our king. 
His house still stands over yonder. He and 
the beautiful Helen lie buried across the 
Eurotas. Odysseus came here to get Penel- 
ope. Not far off the Great Agamemnon 
lies in his tomb. There is not one of the 
gods that has not put foot in Sparta. It is 
holy ground. Let not your foot make it 
unholy. " 

It was a busy life for Leonidas now. 
Every night he must pull rushes for his bed. 



Leonidas 45 

Every morning he must drill with the com- 
pany. For long hours every day he must go 
to the gymnasium in the Plane-tree Grove. 
Ion was often there to watch him. After 
work was finished the old man took the boy 
for a walk. Sometimes it was along the 
banks of the Eurotas, out into the country. 
Sometimes it was about the city, to see the 
statues and public buildings. 

Always Leonidas learned something new 
during those walks. Perhaps Ion told him 
the story of Troy or of some god. Perhaps 
he taught him some wise saying of Lycur- 
gus. Perhaps he took stones and showed 
him how to count. Perhaps, as they stood 
before a statue, Leonidas learned to spell 
out the name of Zeus or of Heracles or of 
Sparta. Perhaps Ion taught him to sing a 
battle-song. Leonidas had no other school 
than these tales and the gymnasium. 

That gymnasium was to Leonidas the 
pleasantest place in Sparta. At the en- 



46 Men of Old Greece 

trance stood a bronze statue of Heracles. 
Porches ran around the four sides of a court. 
Back of them opened the wide doors of 
dressing-rooms. Men were walking along 




INTERIOR OF THE GYMNASIUM 



the porches, talking and laughing. Ion 
leaned against one of the columns. The 
court was filled with boys at work. Some 
were throwing the disc. This was a round 
plate of lead or of stone. It was thick in the 



Leonidas 47 

middle and thinner at the edges. The 
thrower held it in his right hand. He swung 
it back and forth, to get a good movement. 
Then he threw it. The game was to find 
who could throw the farthest. 

Some boys were jumping. The jumper 
held a lead weight in each hand. He swung 
them back and forth, to give himself a good 
start. Then he threw them behind him and 
jumped. That backward push sent him 
ahead. 

Other boys were throwing spears at a 
mark. These spears had leather straps 
wound around them at the balancing point. 
The thrower put his finger through the loop. 
When he threw, he held the strap for a sec- 
ond. That made the spear whirl. It bored 
into the target. 

With every group of boys was a teacher. 
He allowed no laziness. 

"You are not here to play," he said. 
"You are here to get good bodies and to 



48 Men of Old Greece 

learn to be good soldiers. It is a hard task. 
Sparta is watching you." 

Leonidas, on his first day, went into a 
dressing-room and threw off his chiton. 
When he came out into the court, a teacher 
met him. He looked the boy over carefully. 

"Go to the running-tracks," he said. 
"Your legs are too thin." 

The running-track opened out of the 
court. It was a long, smooth path. At 
each end was a post. On top of the post 
stood a little statue of Victory. So Leonidas 
ran here and rested, and ran again and again. 
Then he went back to the shady porch to 
rest. 

Some slaves sat in one corner playing on 
trumpets and drums. In the court boys 
were dancing to this war-music. They 
were pretending to be warriors. They car- 
ried shields and swords. They moved for- 
ward and struck out with their swords. 
Then they leaped to the side and put up 



Leonidas 49 

their shields They were pretending to 
catch a stroke from an enemy. Then they 
peered over their shields and struck out from 
under them. They ran forward and struck 
fast. They were chasing the enemy. All 
this they did in time to the music, yet it 
looked almost like a real battle. It was hard 
work. The boys' bodies were dripping. 
Their eyes and cheeks glowed. At the end 
they turned and came dancing gayly to the 
porch. They held their shields high over 
their heads. They waved their swords. 
They sang a song of victory. The people 
watching cheered and clapped their hands. 

Then Leonidas went to Ion, ready to 
walk. His face was flushed from the hard 
work. His eyes were dancing. When Ion 
saw him, he said, smiling, 

"Apollo of the track has breathed color 
and life into you, little runner." 

"I can dance that dance," Leonidas said 
as they walked away. " My mother taught 



50 



Men of Old Greece 



it to me when I was at home. I danced it 
with my sisters. My mother said to them: 
'We women shall never fight, but our sons 
will; so let us learn the dance. Sparta 
wants mothers who can take good care of 
their children; so let us 
run and wrestle and 
throw the disc and the 
spear, to make ourselves 
well and strong.' They 
used to go to a gymna- 
sium where there were 
only girls." 

" Yes," answered Ion ; 
" and that is what makes 
our Spartan girls beau- 
tiful, and our Spartan mothers brave." 

Leonidas was eighteen years old. He 
was walking with Ion on the river bank after 
mess. The dark was coming on. 

"So to-morrow you become a man, my 
boy," Ion was saying; "a soldier of Sparta. 




SPARTAN GIRLS WITH 
CITHARA 



Leonidas 51 

We have been friends for a long time, Leoni- 
das, — eleven years. I have seen you grow 
tall. I have seen your shoulders broaden. 
I have seen your muscles harden. I have 
seen the fire of courage lighted in your eyes. 
I have seen your heart grow big. I am an 
old man. I shall not do much more work 
for Sparta, but I am proud of this, my last 
piece of work, this boy that has grown up 
under my hand. Has it been a hard life, 
Leonidas?" 

"Yes, hard," the boy answered, "but very 
sweet. I have been working for Sparta, 
and I love her." 

"Yes, I can see love for Sparta shining in 
your face every day," Ion said. "You have 
never shrunk from pain and hard work. 
You have never complained. The hardest 
trial of all comes to-morrow. But I believe 
that you will go through it well. Some will 
fail and will be sent away from Sparta with 
fingers pointed at them. But you will not 



52 Men of Old Greece 

fail. And you will remember, too, that 
Sparta does it all in love. She will lash your 
back until the blood flows. But you will 
kneel at Heracles' altar and smile; for you 
will know that if you cannot bear pain, it is 
better that you go away now. If you stayed., 
you would some time shame yourself and 
your family and Sparta and Heracles in 
battle. You will get your sword to-morrow. 
Shall a man carry a sword if he is afraid of 
the cut of a whip? Your grandfather was 
a king of Sparta. Your brother is king 
now. But it is a poor thing to have men 
point at you and say: 'There is the brother 
of a king.' It is a fine thing to have them 
say of you : 'There goes a Spartan.' 

"But no more talk now. It is time for 
you to report to the Iren." 

On the next day things happened as Ion 
had said. Leonidas walked away from 
Heracles' altar with a bleeding back, but his 
heart sang for joy. He was a man! He 



Leonidas 53 

had been found brave enough to save Sparta. 
Perhaps he would be chosen Iren of some 
boys' company. Before long he could be a 
captain of Helots. Soon he could join a 
mess. He thought of the mess he would 
like to join. It was the Iren's old com- 
pany. But his friend was more than sixty 
years old now. So he lived at home and 
did no soldier's work. 

" I will get them a boar for supper," Leoni- 
das thought. 

Off he ran to the west, towards Mount 
Taygetus. On the way he stopped at a 
little hut. 

"Pisander!" he called. 

A young man came out. He was a Helot. 
He was not so tall or so strong as Leonidas. 
His skin was not so smooth and clear. His 
hands were stiff from holding the spade. 
Yet he was a fine-looking lad. 

" Come for a hunt," Leonidas said. 

Pisander's face lighted up. 



54 Men of Old Greece 

"Artemis give us luck!" he cried, and 
started off on a run beside Leonidas. " Hare 
or deer?" he asked. 

"Boar," answered Leonidas. 

Pisander Mopped short. 

"You go to hunt boar with only two 
people ? " he cried. " We shall be killed." 

Leonidas had kept on running. He called 
back over his shoulder, 

"Don't come if you are afraid." 

"I'm not," shouted Pisander, and started 
on again. 

"There are dogs at Ion's," Leonidas said. 

Soon they stopped before a house. In 
the garden at the side were dog-kennels. 
The boys went there. They took down five 
leashes and collars from a peg in the fence. 
Inside were a dozen dogs barking and leap- 
ing up. Leonidas and Pisander went into 
the yard. They picked out five of the largest 
dogs and put the collars on them and 
led them out. Then they went to a little 



Leonidas 55 

shed and opened it. There lay nets piled 
up. Spears of all kinds leaned against the 
walls. 

"We will not take nets," said Leonidas; 
"this is to be a fair fight between the boar 
and me." 

Each boy took three spears. One was 
long, with a slim, sharp tip. One was 
short, with a heavy shaft and broad point. 
One had long guards sticking out halfway 
up the shaft. These dogs and spears and 
nets belonged to the city. Any Spartan had 
a right to take them whenever he needed. 

The two boys walked on toward the moun- 
tain. Their matted yellow hair shone in the 
sun. The wind waved their short gray 
chitons. The spears glistened above their 
heads. Their bare arms and legs flashed 
white over the green grass. The dogs 
barked and leaped about them and tugged 
at their leashes. Suddenly Leonidas stopped 
and lifted his hands to the sky. 



56 Men of Old Greece 

" O Artemis, huntress, I vow to give you 
a share of our game. Give us good luck." 




As he walked on, he said: 
" It is a hot day. I think we can run him 
down easily." 



Leonidas 57 

Now they were making a steep climb. 
They were going through a forest. The 
dogs kept sniffing the ground. The boys 
looked to right and left for marks of a 
boar. They wound out of the forest and 
came upon a high cliff. 

" Ah ! " cried Leonidas, and pointed. "See ! 
Sparta! The blue Eurotas and its flat, 
green valley! The market-place, with its 
crowd of buildings ! The temples, scattered 
everywhere among the trees ! North are the 
mountains that shut us out from our enemies. 
That is the country I would die for, Pisan- 
der." And he turned and walked on up the 
mountains. 

Soon one of the dogs began to pull hard at 
the leash. She put her nose to the ground 
and wagged her tail. 

" She has a track," whispered Leonidas. 

"See!" cried Pisander, pointing to a tree. 
"The mark of a tusk on the bark." 

Now another dog got the scent. 



58 Men of Old Greece 

"Unleash Augo," said Leonidas. 

Pisanderdid it, and the first dog ran ahead, 
with nose to the ground. But soon she 
stopped and ran about in one spot. 

"She has lost it," said Leonidas. 

He gave his dogs to Pisander to hold. 
Then he went to Augo. 

"Well done, Augo," he said, "well done! 
Get it! Get it!" 

He looked about for a tusk-mark or a 
footprint or a broken twig. He found noth- 
ing. 

"Let go Phonax," he called to Pisander. 

Then Phonax came running along the 
track. But she, too, lost the scent. At last 
Leonidas said: 

"It is cold. Let us go." 

They had that same luck all day long. 

" No sleep or supper until we have a boar," 
said Leonidas. 

So they kept on until it was dark. They 
could not see the ground well. Often they 



Leonidas 59 

stepped on sharp stones and cut their feet. 
It was cold on the mountain. 

" We must run, to keep from getting stiff," 
Leonidas said. "When the moon comes 
out, we may have better luck. May Artemis 
smile!" 

Soon the moon rose. The sky was clear. 
The great mountain lighted up. Its white 
rocks gleamed. Little streams glistened. 
The light pushed among the trees and 
showed the bushes and paths. The boys 
stopped to drink at a spring. 

"Look!" cried Leonidas. "The mark of 
a boar's foot in the mud! Augo, Phonax! 
Smell, smell!" 

In a flash the dogs had the scent. Leoni- 
das undid the leashes. Off they shot up the 
mountain, noses to the ground. The boys 
ran after, through forest, over rocks, across 
streams. They ran for miles. The dogs 
were far ahead. 

"Did you hear?" Leonidas cried at last. 



00 Men of Old Greece 

"They are barking. They have him. 
Faster!" 

Soon they came upon the dogs. They 
were in a circle about a clump of bushes. 
Every dog was looking into it and barking. 
The boys could see nothing, for the bushes 
were thick and close to the ground. 

"Beat the bushes, Pisander," said Leoni- 
das, "and I will stand ready." 

So Pisander beat the bushes with his 
spear. There was a rustle, and the boar 
rushed out. He caught one of the dogs on 
his tusk and threw him into the air and 
against Leonidas. The boy stood on the 
edge of a small rock. This stroke pushed 
him off, and he fell. The boar ran past him 
down the mountain. 

"I have lost him!" Leonidas cried. 
"Clumsy foot!" 

He was up and after. The dogs ran 
ahead of him. After a long run, they were 
barking again. In a moment Leonidas was 



Leonidas 61 

up with them. The boar was facing them. 
Behind him was a gorge. The wall of stone 
dropped straight down. The boar had run 
into a trap. He could not jump, so he had 
turned to fight the dogs. Leonidas came 
close, among the dogs, and thrust at him 
with his spear, but he only gave the shoulder 
a little cut. The boar dashed at him madly. 
Leonidas leaped away. Then he found that 
he had leaped to the wrong side. His back 
was to the gorge. He and the boar had 
changed places. The beast rushed at him 
again, but Leonidas stood ready and ran his 
broad spear through the neck. But the 
boar's rush pushed him back, and his feet 
slipped over the edge of the gorge. As he 
fell, he caught at a tree. There he hung 
by one arm. His head was only a little 
above the top of the ground. The boar 
was still able to fight; he was pushing at 
the spear, trying to reach Leonidas. His 
tusks were within a span of the boy's face. 



62 Men of Old Greece 

The shaft of the spear was slipping and 
bending. 

"O Artemis, help me!" breathed Leoni- 
das. 



After a few minutes, Pisander ran up, 
puffing. He stopped short when he saw 
Leonidas. The Spartan was standing with 
hands raised to the bright moon. 

"O Artemis," he was praying, "queen of 
the hunt, queen of the moon, Artemis, 
mountain-dweller, Artemis of the flying feet, 
of the moonlit eyes, Artemis, saver of life, 
your altar shall remember this night! The 
smoke of my sacrifice shall carry to you the 
heart of Leonidas and his thanks. Every 
morning I will send a prayer to you in 
Olympus, and every night in the moon." 

"What is it?" asked Pisander. 

"O Pisander, we are in the hands of the 
gods," Leonidas said. " Just now I hung 



Leonidas 63 

over that gorge. By my left hand I held to 
a tree. Through my right my spear was 
slipping. The boar's breath was in my 
face. His tusks scratched my hand. He 
was pushing nearer. Then I called upon 
Artemis for help. The moon was under a 
cloud; but Artemis put aside the clouds, and 
with her beams she shot into my heart her 
own courage and into my limbs her own 
strength. She sent a strange voice into the 
woods. The boar stopped to listen. Then 
in that moment, with the strength that 
Artemis had given me, I pulled myself up to 
the ground, and lo ! the boar was dead. Do 
not the feet of the gods make our land holy ? 
They hide in our forests. They walk on 
the winds about us. They watch us from 
sun and moon. Their eyes are always upon 
us. Their hands are ever ready to help." 

The boys stood silent for a little while. 
They were thinking of the wonderful gods. 
Then Pisander quietly began to leash the dogs. 



64 Men of Old Greece 

Leonidas tied the feet of the boar together 
and hung it over a pole. Each boy took an 
end over his shoulder, and they started down 
the mountain. 

They reached Ion's house in the early 
morning. The light was just beginning to 
grow in the sky. They shut up the dogs and 
put away the spears. Leonidas took a hunt- 
ing-knife and cut off a shoulder of the boar 
and gave it to Pisander. 

"Here is your share," he said. "May 
the gods give you good appetite!" 

Then he walked on to the training-grounds, 
the boar across his shoulders. Helots were 
building the fires. Leonidas went up to one 
of these groups and laid the boar on the 
ground. 

"This is for your masters' mess," he said. 

He cut off a hind quarter, saying : 

"This much belongs to Artemis." 

He walked through the city to an altar of 
Artemis. He laid the boar's flesh upon the 



Leonidas 



65 



fire. He kissed the statue that stood there. 
He raised his hands and sang a prayer. The 
rising sun shone in upon him, on his yellow 
hair, his fluttering chiton, his lifted hands. 




THERMOPYLAE 



An army lay encamped on a little plain. 
At one side was the sea. On the other rose 
a steep mountain, with its oaks and pines. 
In front of the army the mountain came 
close to the water. An ox-cart could just go 



66 Men of Old Greece 

between sea and hill. Across this place was 
a stone- wall, with a gate. Behind the army 
was another narrow pass. The place was 
called the pass of Thermopylae. North of it 
lay part of Greece. South of it lay the other 
part, where Athens and Sparta were. Be- 
tween these parts were steep mountains. 
Thermopylae was like a gate in that moun- 
tain-wall. It was the only good road from 
north to south. This army was here now 
to guard it. 

The Persians from across the sea were 
marching down toward the south. This 
news flew ahead of them : 

"The king himself is coming. His army 
drinks rivers dry. Whole cities grow poor in 
feeding it. It stretches, glittering like the 
sea. The Greeks bow down as the king 
comes near. He meets no foes. The land 
is afraid. He comes to make us slaves." 

The men of Southern Greece said: 

"We must stop those Persians. Ther- 



Leonidas 67 

mopylse is the place. We must send an 
army." 

"There is no hurry," the Spartans said. 
"They are yet far off. It is time for the 
great festival at Olympia. We must stay 
for that. But we will send a few men as a 
promise. More will come later!" 

So the Spartan king went with his guard 
of three hundred men. That little army 
was fine to look at as it swung out of the 
city in double line, with shining armor and 
red chitons and long bronze shields and tall 
bronze helmets and dangling swords and stiff 
lances. And the king who led this army was 
Leonidas ; for his brother had died and had 
left no sons. 

These soldiers marched their long way 
through the country. People came to look 
at them. 

"Sparta surely makes warriors," they 
thought. 

A few cities, seeing them, said, 



68 Men of Old Greece 

"We will help." 

So other soldiers joined Leonidas. From 
one city came eighty; from another, a thou- 
sand; from Thebes, four hundred; from 
Thespise, seven hundred. But, after all, it 
was only a little company. 

Now this army was in camp at Ther- 
mopylae Tents were dotted over the little 
plain. Mules and horses were feeding in 
the grass. The rough carts were drawn into 
a circle. Some of the soldiers were at work. 
They were building up the old wall across 
the pass. Others were playing games, — 
running, throwing the disc, dancing, wres- 
tling. The red chitons of the Spartans 
showed bright in the crowd. One of these 
Spartans was saying to a Theban: 

"War is our play. You think it a hard- 
ship. You feast in time of peace. We feast 
in time of war. You put on gay clothes for 
a visit. We wear rags in peace, and fine 
things for war. You curl your hair for a 



Leonidas 69 

banquet. We go cut and uncombed to 
table. Our hair grows long for war, and 
we dress it for battle; for lions must have 
manes." 

"Have you seen the army of the Great 
King?" asked the other man, pointing past 
the mountains. 

"Yes," answered the Spartan. "Yester- 
day I was a scout. An hour's walk from 
our camp lie the Persians. Their tents are 
as many as the stars. The foolish king has 
had a great throne put up. There he sits 
and looks about." 

"I suppose he is waiting for us to run 
away," said the Theban. 

"Perhaps," laughed the Spartan. "Have 
you heard of the man who sat down to see a 
river turn and run uphill ? " 

"Meanwhile," said the Theban, "we 
play our games and have our drills and 
sharpen our swords." 

So the armies sat for four days. But on 



70 Men of Old Greece 

the fifth morning a Greek scout came run- 
ning into camp. 

" At last the fish bites ! " he cried. " They 
are coming, but only one company of them." 

Then there was a rushing to arms. 

"You Spartans look as though the best 
course of the banquet were being served," 
said a Theban. 

" So it is," shouted a dozen Spartans. 

The men fell into line at Leonidas' com- 
mand. The gates were opened, and they 
marched out. They formed in a deep mass 
before the wall. They waited. Soon there 
was a glint of bronze from around a hill. 
Then sounded horses' hoofs. Still the 
Greeks waited. Leonidas stood in front of 
his Spartans. He was tall and straight. 
His head was high. His blue eyes blazed. 
His brown arms, rough with big muscles, 
held ready shield and spears. 

The hoof-beats and the shining armor 
came nearer. Now the Persians were in 



Leonidas 



71 



full view — thousands of men on running 
horses. Brilliant cloths fluttered from their 
heads. A strange iron dress, like the 
scales of a fish, shone on their bodies. 




PERSIAN SOLDIERS 



Wide scarlet trousers flapped in the wind. 
Every man leaned forward as he rode. At 
last they pulled their long bows and let fly 
their arrows. They yelled strange words. 
They came on like a whirlwind. The 
Greeks waited until the Persians were 



72 Men of Old Greece 

crowded together in the narrow pass just 
in front of them. Then they opened their 
mouths and shouted their good war-cry 
and blew their shrill trumpets. They swung 
their swords and ran into that crowd of Per- 
sians. Then was the noise of a great fight, 
— clashing of swords, whizzing of arrows, 
shouting of men. From morning until 
afternoon they fought. Greeks fell dead 
under Persian arrows, but more Persians 
under Greek swords. At last the enemies' 
arrows were gone, their spears were broken. 
They were bleeding with wounds and stiff 
with fighting. And still the Greeks stood 
like a wall of biting swords. So at last the 
Persians turned in fear and rode back to 
their camp. 

The Greeks sat down in front of the wall 
to rest. They sat as they were, in their 
armor, their spears in their hands. They 
knew that a million Persians waited back of 
the hills. They ate a quick meal. They 



Leonidas 73 

carried their wounded behind the wall. The 
Spartans cleaned their armor and combed 
their long hair. But all the time the war- 
riors kept their eyes on the pass ahead. At 
last they saw again the flash of bronze and 
heard the clatter of hoofs. In a moment the 
Greeks were on their feet and in line of 
battle. This time there swung into view ten 
thousand gay horsemen. 

"They are the king's own guard," called 
out a Greek. "This is the flower of their 
army." 

"The Great King flatters us," said a Spar- 
tan, smiling, as he felt the edge of his sword. 

Again the Greeks and Persians met. The 
Greeks were tired from the other battle: 
the Persians were fresh. Yet the Greeks 
stood. But the Persians were doing brave 
deeds. Neither side could force the other 
back. They stood struggling for an hour. 
At length Leonidas gave a signal. Then 
his men turned their backs and all ran 



74 Men of Old Greece 

toward the wall. When the Persians saw 
them running away, they shouted and 
clapped their heels to their horses and rode 
after them. They laughed and waved their 
swords and forgot to be careful. That was 
what Leonidas wanted. At last he gave 
another signal, and the Greeks turned in a 
flash and marched back against the Persians 
and cut them down and made them flee to 
camp. 

That was near night. Then the Greeks 
built fires before the walls and cooked their 
suppers and ate. Every man slept in his 
armor that night, with his spear by his hand. 

All the next day there was fighting, but 
the Greeks stood their ground, and the Per- 
sians ran away. 

Before supper that night, Leonidas said: 

"Let us sacrifice to the gods for our good 
battle." 

So they put meat and wine into the fire 
that burned on a sod altar. As the smoke 



Leonidas 75 

went up, Leonidas raised his hands and 
cried : 

" O great Zeus, and Ares, father of battles, 
and Athene of the bright shield, and all the 




DESCENDING TO BATTLE 



gods who have fought with Greece to-day, 
receive our thanks!" 

Then all the soldiers standing about 
raised a great song of thanksgiving. After 
that, Leonidas said to a man near him : 

"Megistias, you are wise in reading the 



76 Men of Old Greece 

signs of what will happen. Come and look 
at the sacrifice and tell us of to-morrow." 

Then Megistias came and studied the 
fire. He noticed the color of the flame and 
the direction of the smoke and many other 
things. Then he stepped upon a pile of sod. 
There was no joy in his face. He raised his 
hands over the camp. 

"O ye Spartans and other Greeks, the 
gods send you the good luck of dying in bat- 
tle! To-morrow your wives will be widows, 
your sons orphans. We shall lie here dead, 
and the Persians will march past us to 
Greece." 

Leonidas leaped upon the sod. 

"Then they will meet our brothers, more 
brave and of better luck. It is no mean 
thing to die here for Sparta and for Greece. 
Let us make ready for a noble death that 
men shall talk about." 

As the Spartans sat about the camp-fire 
after supper, one of them took his lyre in his 



Leonidas 77 

hands and stood among his countrymen and 
sang: 

" A foe, a sword, 

Our land to guard, 

The gods to watch, 

A grave, a stone, 

A song of praise — 

Enough for me." 

Then he gave the lyre to the man next 
him. This was his song: 

"They say that some men sit and feast 
And spend their nights in drink and song, 
And idly sleep their days away. 
Such men are laughter to the gods, 
A shame unto themselves and Greece. 
How do the Spartans spend their time ? 
In drills and games and mess and hunts, 
To make them fit for death like this." 

The singer passed on the lyre, and the 
next man sang : 



78 Men of Old Greece 

"For what do we fight, O Spartan men ? 

O memories dear; O Spartan land; 

O heroes of old, in Sparta dead; 

O tombs of our kings, who Sparta loved ; 

Lycurgus the wise, the Spartan seer; 

O shrines of the gods, who Sparta trod; 

O mothers and wives in Sparta now. 

For these things we die, O Spartan men." 

So they passed an hour or more in song. 
Around the other camp-fires different things 
were happening. At some, men sat silent, 
with white faces. Around others were 
grumbling and angry looks. 

"These Spartan fools!" some men said. 
"Hear them boast! They would fight 
against the sea itself." 

Two or three hours after dark a guard 
came to Leonidas, leading a man. 

"This man came running to me now," he 
said. "He calls himself a Greek, a deserter 
from the Great King." 



Leonidas 79 

The stranger turned to the men and 
spoke. 

"I am a Greek from across the sea," he 
said. " You know how the Great King has 
crushed us with his heavy hands. After that 
he said, ' You shall go with me to fight against 
your countrymen ! ' — But I did not come to 
tell you my story, but this news: The Per- 
sian army is moving. They are crossing the 
mountains at your left. A traitor told them 
of the path. They broke camp at lamp- 
lighting time. Part stayed behind. In the 
morning they will close around you from 
front and back and wipe you out. I swear 
by the gods that I speak the truth!" 

" We believe you," said Leonidas quietly. 
"A prophet has already told us that we shall 
die to-morrow." 

Just then another deserter was brought 
in. He told the same story. 

"We put some men to guard that path," 
Leonidas said; "but they are few. The 



80 Men of Old Greece 

path is little known. We thought the Great 
King would not hear of it. Besides, it is 
narrow and steep. So he would rather face 
the mountain than the Spartans?" he 
laughed. "But we need sleep to make us 
ready for the fight. The gods give us sweet 
rest, comrades!" 

So the Spartans slept calmly all night. 

Before sunrise next morning the Greeks 
were at breakfast. As they ate, scouts came 
running down the mountain-side. They 
leaped, panting, among the men. 

"They are crossing the mountain. They 
will shut us in from behind and in front." 

Then there was murmuring among the 
Greeks. Leonidas heard it and said: 

"Come close, all you men of Greece. 
Let us talk this matter over. It is my 
opinion that we ought to stay and fight. 
How many think with me?" 

Every Spartan and Thespian hand shot 
up with a shout. 



Leonidas 81 

"It is folly/' cried out a Theban. "Do 
you think you can stop a million men ?" 

" No," answered a Spartan. " Neither can 
we run away." 

"Do you know how many there are?" 
called another man. "When they shoot 
their arrows, they will hide the sun." 

"So much the better," laughed a Spartan. 
"We shall fight in the shade." 

"Let the Spartans stay," called another 
Theban. "They are afraid to go back 
home. But we have mothers and wives 
who love us." 

"And we Thespians will stay," shouted a 
man, "because we have mothers and wives 
whom we love." 

At last Leonidas spoke. 

"O men of Greece!" he said, "we Spar- 
tans were sent here to guard this pass. 
There is nothing else for us to do. But 
your commands are not so strong. You 
have different laws. It is needless for you to 



82 Men of Old Greece 

stay. It means only death. The Persians 
are still on the mountain. The way to the 
south is clear. I send you to your homes. 
The Thespians stay with us from choice. 
The Thebans stay because I command it. 
We have heard whispers of what they wish 
to do, — to join the Persians. To you others, 
farewell! May the gods keep you to fight 
against our enemies another day!" 

Then Leonidas went to Megistias. 

"No man will go alive from this field," he 
said. "You can give the messages of the 
gods to men. Go with these soldiers and 
save your life." 

"No!" said Megistias, "I will not leave 
the company of the brave for the company 
of cowards." 

So those others marched away south. 
Those who were left waited until about noon. 
They cleaned their armor and got their 
weapons ready and talked quietly of what 
was coming. 



Leofiidas 83 

"Here are our graves," one said, looking 
about the little plain. "But, by Heracles! 
here are some Persian graves, too." 

"We fight in the sight of our gods and by 
their holy altars," Leonidas said. " For see, 
yonder is a healing spring of Heracles, and 
his altar by it. I pray that we may not make 
him ashamed of his children." 

At last there came the trampling of horses 
from the north. Then the Greeks marched 
out of the gate and on past the narrow place. 
They spread out into a thin line and went on 
to meet the Persians. Then the fight began. 
A god seemed to burn in every Greek. The 
Persians fell fast. Then they grew afraid 
and tried to turn back, but those behind 
pushed them ahead. And at the back the 
officers whipped their men into the fight. 
So some were trampled down, others were 
pushed into the sea. Soon all the Greek 
spears were broken or lost. The men fought 
only with their short swords. Then many 



84 Men of Old Greece 

of them died, and Leonidas was one. When 
he fell, the Persians gave a great shout and 
rushed to get his body. But the Greeks 
cried out, "Sparta and Leonidas!" and 
closed around him in a circle, with swords 
flashing death. So they stood for a long 
time fighting. But at last the word went 
about, 

"The other Persians are coming from 
behind." 

Then those Spartans and Thespians who 
were left took up Leonidas and carried 
him back to a little hill behind the wall, 
fighting all the way. But the Thebans ran 
to the Persians and held out their hands, 
crying, 

"We are friends of the Great King." 

So the Persians passed them by and went 
on to the hill. On the top was that little ring 
of brave men, facing out to their foes on 
every side. But such a thing could not last 
long. That sea of Persians swept up the 






Leonidas 85 

hill and left every Spartan and Thespian 
dead and went on into Greece. 

After that there was a terrible war. But 
when it was over, and the Persians were 
driven out, the Greeks said, 

" Our children's children must know what 
happened at Thermopylse. " 

So they raised a great mound over the 
dead there and set up two columns. One 
was for all who fought on those first two 
days. There were carved on it these words, 

"Four thousand Greeks here fought 
against a million Persians." 

The other column was for the Spartans 
alone. On it were these words, 

"Stranger, go tell Sparta that we lie here 
at her command." 

But on that little hill where the Spartans 
made their last stand was another monu- 
ment, a stone lion, with "Leonidas" carved 
upon it. 

Sparta never forgot that battle or that 



86 Men of Old Greece 

hero. In her market-place she built a 
covered walk, called the Persian Walk. 
Instead of columns to hold up the roof, were 
Persians carved in stone, and on the wall of 
the porch were paintings of the Persian 
battles. That porch seemed always to 
say, 

"Remember the courage of the men who 
drove the Persians out of Greece." 

Four years after the battle of Ther- 
mopylae, the Spartans said: 

"Our greatest hero lies in strange soil. 
Let us bring him home. It will do our sons 
good always to see his tomb." 

So they brought the bones of Leonidas to 
Sparta, and buried them in a great stone 
tomb. And there they hung a bronze tablet, 
with the names of those three hundred Spar- 
tans on it, and these words, 

"These are the men who looked the Per- 
sians in the face." 

Every year at this tomb there were games 



Leonidas 87 

and speeches. Only Spartans might play, 
and only Spartans might hear. 

"Other heroes sleep in Spartan soil," 
those speakers said. "Here sleeps the lion 
of Thermopylae. He was a king. He was 
a Spartan. Let Spartans see that they 
be worthy of this countryman and of this 
king." 



THEMISTOCLES 



THEMISTOCLES 

A LL the freemen of Athens stood on the 
Pnyx hill. There were tanners and car- 
penters and farmers and fishermen, in short, 
dark chitons. Their brown arms and legs 
were bare. Their hair was cropped. There 
were gentlemen in white linen robes that 
reached to their feet. Their long hair was 
gathered into a knot on top of their heads 
and was fastened with a golden pin. Here 
and there a few young men were dressed in a 
later fashion. Their hair was short. They 
wore short chitons, like the workmen's. 
But these glowed with gold embroidery or 
light bands of color. 

There were no smiling faces in that great 
crowd. Most wore sneers or frowns. All 

91 



92 



Men of Old Greece 



eyes were turned toward the stone platform. 
There was a strange company. One man 
stepped out to speak. He wore a long red 
robe of silk, embroidered with flowers. On 







REMAINS OF THE PNYX 



his head was a tall red cap. His black hair 
hung in curls to his shoulders. His face was 
dark and covered with a curling beard. A 
heavy gold chain hung around his neck. He 
raised his hand to speak, and a loose sleeve 
fluttered out. Gold bracelets shone on his 
arm. On the platform were two or three 



Themistocles 93 

other men dressed in the same fashion. The 
Athenian officer, the president of the meet- 
ing, sat in a chair. His chin was in his hand. 
He looked at the stranger and frowned. 

This stranger began to speak. But he 
used a language that the Athenians could 
not understand. A man stood beside him. 
He had fair face and hair like the Athenians, 
and he wore a long chiton like theirs. He 
was a Greek from across the sea, where these 
strangers lived, and he could speak their 
language. He had come with them to tell 
the Athenians what they said. So now, as 
the stranger talked, this Greek spoke after 
him: 

"I am a messenger to you from the Great 
King of Persia. He is master of the world- 
The harvests of the great Nile are his. The 
ships on the paths of the sea are his. The 
horses of Arabia, the gold of India, belong to 
him. The wild men of the north bow down 
to him. Lands tremble under the glance of 



94 Men of Old Greece 

his eye. All the world, but Greece, has sent 
him earth and water, because he is master of 
all lands and lord of all the seas. And now 
I have come to get earth and water from you. 
It is the Great King's command." 

An angry roar went up from the crowd. 
Many men shook their fists at the strangers. 
The whole crowd pushed forward close to 
the platform, shouting angrily: 

"Commands! Commands!" 

"Take your commands back to your 
slaves, not to Athens," cried one man. 

"Athens has no earth to spare," shouted 
another. 

"The messenger has too much Athenian 
earth on his shoes now. Let him shake it 
off and begone," another called. 

"Yes!" the whole crowd shouted. "Be 
off to your Great King! Athens does not 
want you. Go!" And they shook their 
fists. 

The strangers on the platforn^(fathered 



Themistocles 



95 



together and talked. The Athenian presi- 
dent looked on from his chair and smiled. 

Another stranger came forward. 

" Men of Athens," he began ; but the crowd 
shouted him down. 

The president stood 
up and raised his 
hand. 

"Let us hear this 
Persian and then an- 
swer him," he said. 

So the people lis- 
tened. 

"Be careful what 
answer you send," 
said the Persian. 
" The Great King has 
many hands and many weapons. If his 
trumpet blows, warriors will run to him from 
the four ends of the earth. Those warriors 
will trample your little land into the sea. 
But the Great King is kind to his friends. 




A PERSIAN AMBASSADOR 



96 Men of Old Greece 

For them sunshine falls from his eyes, and 
gold flows from his hand. You choose be- 
tween death and the king's love." 

"Death, then!" shouted the people. 

A man came out of the crowd and ran up 
the steps upon the platform. 

" Themistocles ! " the people shouted. 
"Let us hear him!" 

Themistocles caught up a crown of myrtle 
from the altar and put it upon his head. 
Then he turned quickly to the crowd. His 
eyes blazed. 

"Men of Athens," he said; and his voice 
rang like a war-cry. "Remember the fair 
shores across the sea. There our kinsmen 
lived in beautiful cities. Their ships rode 
out to the corners of the world. Smoke rose 
from their altars to the gods. Freemen 
filled their market-places. Artists worked 
in their shops. Fearless soldiers walked the 
high walls and guarded the gates. Now 
those walls are flat. Those shops are empty. 



Themistocles 97 

Those market-places are bare. Those altars 
are overturned. Those ships are sunk. 
Who has done these things? This Great 
King, who commands us to give him earth 
and water. Will you make friends with 
him?" 

"No!" shouted the crowd. 

Themistocles pointed at the strange 
Greek. 

"And this man," he said, "is from one of 
those ruined cities. Yet now he does the 
king's errands. He has put this Persian's 
words into Greek. Those words praised 
that Great King who has killed our kinsmen 
or made slaves of them. Those words were 
commands to us as though we were slaves. 
Shall any man dare to use our Greek lan- 
guage so ? I move that this man be arrested 
and punished like a criminal." 

The iUhenian president leaped to his feet. 

"All who think that this should be done 
will raise their hands." 



98 



Men of Old Gi 



There was a great uprush of hands, with 
a shout. 

"It shall be done," said the president. 



"Guards, arrest 
have your answer 



this man. Persian, you 
The meeting is over." 
After that, Athens was 
a busy place. There were 
meetings often on the 
Pnyx hill. At one of them 
Themistocles said: 

"Men of Athens, what 
we have done means war. 
We have expected this 
thing for a long time. We 
have watched the Great 
King's soldiers march up 
and down the lands across the sea. We have 
seen them beat down the walls of our neigh- 
bors. We ourselves went across and lent a 
hand. Nine years ago we burned the Per- 
sian's rich city. We have never expected 
the Great King to forget that. Have we not 




THEMISTOCLES 



Themistocles 99 

heard how a slave stands behind him at every 
meal and says, 'Master, remember the 
iVthenians ' ? And have I not said to you, 
'Athenians, remember the Persian war'? 
Has a man ever gone to the market-place to 
buy or to gossip without finding Themistocles 
there talking of the Persian war ? Have you 
ever come to the assembly without hearing 
Themistocles say, 'We must have a port 
before the Persian war begins, and Piraeus 
is the place ' ? At last the work started. 
Now we have a port at Piraeus, and we have 
seventy ships on the sea. It is good, but it is 
not enough. We must have walls about our 
port. We must have more ships. We must 
be able to fight on the sea. For the Persians 
will come in boats. Our Athens lies on a 
plain here. Fields and gardens are all about 
her. The Persians will camp around her. 
They will eat our harvests. They will burn 
our houses. We shall die in our city. W T e 
must have ships to go to. We must have a 



100 Men of Old Greece 

safe place in which to leave our wives and 
children. Now Piraeus is on a steep bluff. 
The sea goes around it almost all the way. 
We men can lie in our ships under the walls 
of Piraeus and fight for our women. But 
more ships must be built. Piraeus must 
be walled. There is not a moment to 
spare. We must all turn carpenters and 
shipbuilders and masons. Let us set to 
work." 

So Athens was busy for a year. Then 
people began coming from Greek cities in 
the north. 

"We are flying from the Persians," they 
said. " They are on their way here. They 
are breaking down the walls of our cities as 
they come." 

Then one day men came from the island 
of Eubcea, just north of Athens. They were 
Athenians who had been in Eubcea for a 
little while. 

"We have seen the Persians," they said. 



Themistocles 101 

"They came in ships. They got out upon 
our land. We never saw such an army 
before. They covered the land. No city 
can stand before them. The towns of 
Eubcea are making a brave fight, but they 
will fall. We ran to tell you and to help. 
Make ready. The Persians will come here 
next." 

The men of Athens held a great meeting. 
They chose their generals. They said to 
them: 

" Call together all the men of Athens who 
are able to fight. Leave a few to guard the 
city. Take the others to meet the Persians. 
We must stop them here. They must not 
come upon Greek soil. Sparta will help us. 
Let us send a runner to tell her." 

The next two days were busy ones. 
Pheidippides was off to Sparta to get help. 
The generals were drilling their army. 

"But what can we do ? " said a man in the 
market-place. "We are only a handful 



102 Men of Old Greece 

against a million. Sparta must send us all 
she can. And then we shall lose." 

"What can we do?" cried another man. 
" Our best, and the gods will fight with us. 
This is their land as well as ours." 

On the second day the guard at a gate 
blew his trumpet and called: 

" Pheidippides is coming back. I see him 
running along the road near the river." 

When men heard that, they began to run. 

"Pheidippides!" they cried. "To the 
market-place ! Hear his message. Pheidip- 
pides is back from Sparta." 

So the word went. From all corners of 
the city men ran to the market-place. They 
crowded close around the doors of the offi- 
cers' house. Pheidippides would come there 
to give his message. The crowd was silent. 
Men's faces were pale. They were thinking : 

"Will Sparta come? Must we stand 
alone?" 

At last Pheidippides came through the gate 



Themistocles 103 

of the market. He dragged his feet in a slow 
run. His wet body glistened in the light. 
Dust was caked on his legs. His nostrils 
were spread. Men could hear his breath 
whistle through them. His lips were white 
and tight shut. His eyes were red. A man 
put out his arms, and Pheidippides fell into 
them. 

"Sparta will not come," he said. 

His voice was thick. Then he rested. 
Men turned to one another with pale faces. 

"She will not come," they whispered. 

Then they waited to hear more from 
Pheidippides. 

"I ran to their market-place," he said. 
"Their kings and best men were there. I 
said: 'Athens asks you for help. The Per- 
sians are coming. The men of Eubcea are 
already made slaves, and their cities are 
burned. Help us ! ' But they turned slowly 
to talk among themselves. And one said to 
me : ' It is a long run ; you must bathe and 



104 Men of Old Greece 

eat.' 'No, no!' I cried. 'Your answer!' 
But still they talked. At last they turned 
and said to me: 'There is no need for hurry. 
Our great festival of Apollo comes in a few 
days. We must wait for that. After that 
we will come.' 

" I did not wait to hear more. Back I ran 
to Athens, over the mountains, down the 
valleys, through the rivers. And every hour 
my legs grew heavy, and my breath short, 
for anger at Sparta filled my throat, and my 
heart was cold with fear for Athens. At 
last I stumbled in a little stream, and I cried 
out: 'O gods of Olympus, help me!' And 
as I fell I saw a goat-beard moving in a little 
dim cave and I heard a shrill note of Pan's 
pipe. I lay trembling, afraid to look up. 
Then there was a quick stir through the 
bushes. I felt a rough hand on my head. 
At that touch fire rushed through my veins. 
I leaped up. Pan was gone, but his own 
strength was in me. My lungs were fresh. 



Themistocles 105 

My legs were steady. My heart laughed. 
The rest of the way I ran like a wind to tell 
you: 'Fear not. We have a friend. Pan 
helps us. We win!'" 

Then the men in that crowd threw up their 
hands and shouted : 

"Pan and Athens!" 

The army of Athens was on the march. 
Behind them soldiers walked the wall of the 
Acropolis. The city streets were empty. 
The women and children sat trembling be- 
hind their shut doors. The old men talked 
in the market-place, waiting for news. 
Ahead of the army were the mountains and 
the pass. Beyond that were the Persians. 

The Greeks marched for six hours. Then 
they came out from the pass. Before them 
lay a little plain. On one side of it rose a 
high mountain. On the other side was the 
sea. Here lay the Persian ships, drawn up 
on the sand. On the shore back of them 
were tents, stretching up and down the sea 



106 Men of Old Greece 

for miles. Some were black and mean 
looking. Some sparkled with cloth of gold. 
Some shone with bright colors. Some were 
made of skin. Among them bustled men 
in curious clothes. 

Many of the Athenians had never seen the 
Persians before. Now a noise of wonder 
went through their ranks. But they marched 
straight on. They kept close to the moun- 
tain. There was a wide hilltop at the foot. 
Here was a spring and an altar to Heracles. 
To this hilltop the Athenians marched, and 
here they set up their tents. After the work 
of making camp was over, men stood and 
looked down at the Persians and talked. 

"Surely the whole world has poured 
soldiers into that camp," said one. 

"And we alone stand against them," said 
another. 

"We are not alone," said Pheidippides. 
"Pan fights with us, — Pan the gay, the 
strong, the b ringer of fear." 



Themistocles 107 

"There is good omen in this place, too," 
said another man. "We fight at the altar 
of Heracles and on his ground. And here, 
hundreds of years ago, our king, Theseus, 
wrestled with a wild bull and won. We 
wrestle with the bull of Persia, and we shall 
win." 

"Athene, too, will not desert us," another 
soldier said. "Has she not always fought 
with us ? Is not her holy house in Athens ? 
Did she not give us her own name? The 
gods are on our side." 

"And yet," said the first man, "it is a sad 
thing that not one hand in all Greece is 
raised to help us. In her hundred cities 
men stand idle and watch us." 

Late that afternoon the Athenians saw 
dust rise from the road they had just come 
over. Next they saw a glint of armor. By 
that time every man was looking. A little 
column of soldiers was marching toward the 
camp. Who were they? They could not 



108 Men of Old Greece 

be foes from that direction. But what 
friends could they be? 

"Sparta has changed her mind," some 
cried. "She has sent us soldiers." 

"But what a handful!" others answered. 

"They are not Spartans," a man said. 
"They have not the high helmets or the red 
chitons or the letter on their shields." 

So men stood making guesses and chang- 
ing them. The generals sent out a scout to 
see who the strangers were. The Athenians 
watched him running down the hill among 
the bushes. He kept hidden from the men 
marching. But as he went near, the Athe- 
nians saw him break from the bushes and run 
straight up the hill again. They heard him 
shouting before they could understand his 
words. But at last they made out: 

"The men of Platsea! The men of Pla- 
ta?a! They are coming with a thousand 
soldiers to lend us a hand." 

Then a great shout of joy rang from those 



Themistocles 109 

Athenian throats. Men ran down the hill 
calling out. When the Platseans saw, they 
broke ranks and ran to meet their friends. 
All the way back men walked with their 
arms over each other's shoulders, and there 
were shouts of: 

"Athens! Plataea! Little Platsea, the 
true-hearted!" 

In the camp the Athenian generals met 
the Platsean commander. They grasped 
his hands. Tears were in men's eyes. 

"Athens sent her friend no message," 
said the Platsean. "Did you think we were 
not worth telling ? It is true that our city is 
little and weak. But we shall never forget 
that day when we sat on the altar-steps at 
Athens and asked her for help. She raised 
us up and called us friends that day and 
fought our battle for us. And since then 
she has struck many a blow for us. Now 
we can help her. Our swords are few, but 
our hearts are full of love." 



110 Men of Old Greece 

When the Athenians went to sleep that 
night, their faces shone with gladness. They 
had almost forgotten the Persians and were 
remembering their friend, little Platsea, the 
true-hearted. 

For nine days the Athenians and Persians 
sat in their camps and looked at each other. 

"The more often I see these Persians," 
said an Athenian, "the less I fear them. I 
think they are more slaves than soldiers." 

"After this war," said another, "I will 
never wear a long chiton again. It is too 
like the Persian dress." 

"After this war we shall all be Persian 
slaves," another soldier said. 

*' Faint-heart ! " cried a dozen men. 

"Faint-heart indeed!" he said. "I am 
not afraid of twice or three times our num- 
bers. But look ! The plain is flooded with 
men. There are spearmen and swordsmen. 
There are bowmen and slingers to shoot from 
afar. There are horsemen to run upon us 



Themistocles 



111 



and then be off before we can breathe. We 
have no bowmen and no horsemen. The 
enemy are ten times our number. I say, 
let us wait until Sparta comes to help." 

" Wait for Sparta ! " cried 
the others. " Wait for the 
Persians to burn Athens!" 
" Half our generals think 
as I do," said the man. 

"But Miltiades knows 
better," the others replied. 
" When the right time comes, 
he will lead us out. He will 

MILTIADES n()t waU f()r gparta . And 

Themistocles is of the same mind. They 
are the men for Athens." 

On the ninth morning the Persians began 
to move. The ships were pushed off into the 
water. The horsemen saddled their horses 
and rode on board and sailed off. Then the 
footmen made ready to go into their ships. 

Miltiades had called his Greeks into line. 




112 Men of Old Greece 

They stood on the hilltop waiting and looking 
at the Persians. 

"We have frightened them away," men 
said. "They dare not try to march past us 
to Athens. They will sail around to the 
city. We must stop them. What will our 
command be ?" 

Some Persians stood in arms on guard. 
Others were getting into their boats. Off 
on the sea shone the sails of the ships that 
were carrying the horsemen away. Then at 
last Miltiades gave the word to march. The 
Greek army moved down the hill in a long, 
thin line, five hundred men abreast. In the 
middle the line was only two or three men 
deep. It moved steadily ahead. Every 
man held his spear before him. His shield 
was tight to his left side. His sword swung 
at his knee. The helmets glistened. Dust 
rose behind the line. The men sang a war- 
song as they marched. Soon Miltiades gave 
another command. The trumpets blew. 



Themistocles 113 

The men shouted the war-cry for Athens. 
Then they all broke into a run, still shoulder 
to shoulder. 

The Persians were surprised. The guards 
gave the alarm. The others turned to look. 
Some leaped out of their boats. Then there 
was a rushing about. Men caught up their 
arms and fell into line. But the Greeks 
were upon them quickly. The Persian 
arrows had just begun to fly when the Greeks 
were already pushing with their spears and 
slashing with their swords. 

The Persians were on the very shore. 
The sea was behind, the Greeks in front. 
So they fought for their lives, and they did 
many brave deeds. Their swords rang loud 
on the Greek armor. And from the back of 
their line their arrows dropped like stinging 
hail upon the heads of the Greeks. Few of 
the Persians wore armor. The Greek 
swords tore through their soft clothes and 
sank into their flesh. Yet they stood firm, 



114 Men of Old Greece 

and many a Greek and Persian fell together 
after a brave fight. But when a Persian in 
the front line died, another stepped forward 
and took his place; for they were many. 
New foes stepped out so fast that there was 
no time for the Greeks to take breath. They 
were wounded, their armor was slashed, 
their spears were broken, yet they kept up 
the fight; for they were thinking: 

"These Persians will make us slaves, if 
they win. They will burn our homes. They 
will carry away our wives and children. We 
must drive them back." 

And some things happened that put heart 
into the Greeks. 

"Courage, friends," a man cried to his 
neighbors. "Did you not see Athene's hel- 
met flash along the line ? Did you not hear 
the whizzing of her spear?" 

"Athene for Athens!" they shouted back; 
and courage leaped into their hearts. 

" Pan ! Pan ! " cried Pheidippides. " He 



Themistocles 115 

fights beside me. He has kept his promise." 

"See! There is Heracles with his good 
club." 

" The gods are with us," all men thought, 
and were glad. 

So they pushed the Persians before them. 
Many they struck dead on the shore. Some 
fell into the sea. Most leaped into their 
boats and pushed off. Then the Athenians 
ran into the water after them. They caught 
hold of the ships and struck down the rowers 
and broke the oars and fought with the 
soldiers. The Persians struck bravely back, 
and many Greeks dropped into the sea and 
died. But some boats the Greeks burned 
there on the shore, while the others sailed 
away. At last only the dead warriors and 
the burning ships and the Greeks were left 
on the battle-field. 

Then the Athenians rested and looked 
about. Thousands of men lay dead on the 
plain, — Greeks and Persians. 



116 Men of Old Greece 

"This is the price we pay for our city," 
Miltiades said. " But we must be ready for 
them." 

He left one company to bury the dead. 
The others he led back to Athens. Their 
armor was cut and dented. Some men car- 
ried Persian swords or shields, because their 
own had been lost in the fight. On many 
bare arms and legs were wounds, sometimes 
wrapped with rags of Persian dress. It 
was a broken army. But there was a joy in 
their hearts such as they had never felt be- 
fore. They had done a thing such as no 
other army had ever done. They had 
beaten the army of the Great King. 

When they came near Athens, they saw 
the Persian boats coming towards Piraeus. 
But at the sight of the Athenian armor the 
Persians turned away. They had had 
enough of fighting. They sailed back across 
the sea to Persia, and Athens was at rest. 

Then the first thing was to raise a mound 



Themistocles 117 

of earth over the dead warriors. Some 
people had said: 

"Let us bring them back to the city and 
bury them there. All the other soldiers 
who have died for Athens lie over there in 
our cemetery." 

But other men said: 

"No. Let them He on the battle-field. 
No other men ever fought such a battle. 
They are the first Greeks to meet the Per- 
sians. They are heroes." 

So there on the plain of Marathon they 
raised a great mound over their brave sol- 
diers. On the top they put ten stone columns 
and cut on them the names of the men buried 
there. They raised another mound over the 
Platseans. And they cut their names on a 
column. 

" Let no man ever forget," said the Atheni- 
ans, "that the Platseans came to Athens in 
her need and did brave deeds at Marathon." 

At the next meeting in the Pnyx they 



118 



Men of Old Greece 




A SOLDIER OF MARATHON 



voted for a festival of 
Marathon. 

" Our children and 
their children for hun- 
dreds of years must not 
forget Marathon," the 
people said. "It is the 
best battle that ever was 
fought. It saved Greece. 
Every year we will hold a 
Marathon festival. On 
that day we will sacrifice 
to the gods in thanksgiv- 
ing. And our herald 
shall pray, and these shall 
be his words, 'May the 
gods bless the Athenians 
and the Platseans ! ' And 
on that day we will 
burn sacrifices on those 
mounds as on holy altars. 
Our soldiers shall drill 



Themistocles 119 

there on that day, looking at the mounds of 
those heroes. So they shall remember to be 
brave like the men who died there for 
Athens." 

It was in the middle of the forenoon several 
months after the battle of Marathon. The 
market-place was full of people. Flower-girls 
were running about with their baskets. 

"Roses, roses! Violets from the plains! 
Crocuses from the road to Piraeus ! Flowers ! 
Buy, buy!" 

Rough fellows, in short brown or gray 
chitons, stood by their little tables and beat 
upon gongs and cried: 

"Fish, fish! Fresh fish! Caught but an 
hour ago ! Come buy ! " 

Bankers sat on their benches behind their 
little tables covered with boxes and coins. 
They were changing money for visitors from 
foreign cities, and they were lending to 
gay young men, who dropped the coins into 
their bags and were off, laughing. 



120 Men of Old Greece 

A pottery-seller had his little table full of 
red and black vases. 

"Come buy a Marathon vase," he called, 
"painted with pictures of our glorious 
battle." 

And among those dozens of tables and cry- 
ing merchants walked the men of Athens. 
Their slaves followed with baskets and 
money-bags. Some were buying vegetables 
and fruits and wines and meat and bread 
and cakes for dinner. Others were buying 
clothes and sandals; others, vases, jewels, 
lamps, olive oil. So the baskets of the slaves 
were filled. 

"This sight delights my eyes," said a man 
who stood talking to friends. "Peace is 
the real glory of a land. We have driven 
out the Persians; now we can rest." 

"Rest?" cried a man who had just come 
up. " Rest with no wall about Athens ? 
Rest with our port unfinished ? Rest with 
no ships to meet our foes on the sea ? Are 



Themistocles 



121 



the Persians driven out ? Only driven back 
to make better plans. How long do you 
think it will be before we see the water white 
with Persian sails and feel our land tremble 




JUGS, DECORATED BY VASE PAINTERS 



under Persian feet? Rest? There is not 
an hour to spare. Are the men of Athens 
mad to think of resting now ? We can rest 
when Persia is dead." 

" Oh,Themistocles raving again !" laughed 
one of the men. "You are a skeleton at the 
feast, Themistocles. Three men cannot 



122 Men of Old Greece 

stand together anywhere in Athens without 
having you come up and rave about the 
Persians and the work to be done." 

"A skeleton at the feast?" cried Themis- 
tocles. "You need one. You have drunk 
the wine of victory. It has made you drowsy. 
Must I frighten you to work ? The king of 
Persia can get together enough soldiers to 
cover our land. And do you think he will 
not do it ? Is he not ashamed of Marathon ? 
Will he not try to wipe out that disgrace? 
How can we win against him ? His weakest 
point is his navy. Persians are not sailors. 
He must borrow, his ships and crews from 
lands that he conquers. Those men will 
fight from fear of him. Can such men win 
against men who fight for their own dear 
country? So I say: Let us build ships. Let 
us all go aboard and leave an empty land for 
the Persian army. But let us meet the ships 
on the sea, and we shall win. We have sev- 
enty boats now. We must have two hundred!' 



Themistocles 123 

"Ho-o!" laughed the men about Themis- 
tocles; for a crowd had gathered to listen. 
"Two hundred ships of war! Where can 
you get the money ? Where can you get the 
men to do the work?" 

"I know of ten rich men," Themistocles 
replied, "who have already said: 'We will 
each pay for the building of a ship.'" 

A fish-seller put his hands on his hips and 
raised his eyebrows and gave a long whistle. 

"Nothing stingy about that!" he said. 

"No," cried a potter. "But they are 
rich. We poor men have nothing to give." 

"Have you not?" cried Themistocles. 

He pointed to the east. 

" Off there are the silver mines of Athens," 
he said. "Rich men work them and pay 
rent — to whom ? To you and me, the free- 
men of Athens. The rent will soon be due. 
Will you spend it for Athens ?" 

"No!" cried a blacksmith. "I need it to 
buv a new bellows." 



124 • Men of Old Greece 

"You will need no bellows, Ariston," 
said Themistocles, "when the Persians have 
set fire to Athens." 

"The Persians!" laughed a dozen men. 
"When our children are men, they can take 
care of the Persians. Now they are far off." 

Then the company broke up. Themis- 
tocles walked slowly away. His mouth was 
set hard. There was a frown on his fore- 
head. 

"They must do it," he was thinking. 
"How can I plan it? They must listen." 

He had done more than he thought that day. 
Those men went away scoffing. But they 
could not forget Themistocles' words. Some 
talked together of the matter afterwards. 

And Themistocles was in the market- 
place every day. And always he talked 
about the war, the walls, the navy. 

"Here comes the Athenian navy," men 
used to say of him when they saw him 
coming. 



Themistocles 125 

"If you meet this man at a banquet," a 
young fop once said, " he will not touch the 
lyre and sing of love or of beauty or of 
the gods, as other men do. He talks of the 
Athenian navy. If you go to the market- 
place to have a pleasant chat in a perfumer's 
shop, in will come Themistocles and make 
your head ache with the Athenian navy. I 
am coming to dream at night of him and his 
navy." 

"And there are worse things to dream of," 
replied a friend of Themistocles. 

"Yes," answered another man. "Now 
that this trouble with iEgina has come, a 
navy would not be a bad thing for Athens." 

So the talk grew. 

Again there was a meeting on the Pnyx 
hill. The sacrifices and prayers were over. 
Then Themistocles stepped upon the plat- 
form and put the myrtle crown upon his 
head. Above him to right and left stretched 
the crowd of Athenian men. Before Mara- 



126 Men of Old Greece 

thon it had been a crowd with long robes and 
long hair and flashing jewels. Now it was a 
crowd with close-cropped hair and short 
chitons and bare legs,— a crowd of active 
men, of haters of Persia. 

Themistocles' voice rang out: 

"Men of Athens, what 
will you do ? Our sacred 
ship and our holy priests 
are not safe on the seas. 
We send them to the tem- 
ple of Poseidon for the 
great festival. The men 
of ^Egina hide on our shores and steal our 
priests. Our merchants sail out from Pirseus 
in ships loaded with rich stuffs. The men 
of iEgina lie in wait, sink the ships, carry 
home the rich goods. And have you heard 
the talk of the traders from across the sea ? 
The Great King is mad with anger. They 
say : ' He will conquer Greece yet. He has 
called a new army together. The whole land 




SOLDIER OF .EGINA 



Themistocles 127 

of Persia clangs with arms and marching 
men. This time the king himself will lead 
his army.' 

"These things are not news to you now. 
You have talked them over in the market- 
place during the last few days. What shall 
we do ? iEgina is an island. Her men are 
at home on the sea as well as on the land. 
There is but one way to meet them, — in 
ships. The Persians will burn our land. 
Where shall we stand then ? In ships. 

"There lie in our treasure-house now 
chests of money, the rent from our silver 
mines. Athens is ready to divide it among 
you. Will you have it to buy clothes that 
shall burn in Persian fire ? Will you have it 
to buy wheat to eat while the men of iEgina 
drink the wine that our ships take to sea? 
Will you have it to lay away in money-chests 
for Persians to break open ? Or will you 
build ships with it, to be a strong right arm 
for Athens? — ships that will drive the men 



128 Men of Old Greece 

of iEgina home; ships that will keep our 
waters safe and bring rich traders to our 
port; ships that will save our wives and 
children and land from Persia. I move that 
the money from the silver mines be spent for 
building a navy to save Athens." 

The president asked for the vote. Then 
the men of Athens forgot their little wishes 
and their stinginess and their poverty. 
They remembered only their dear Athens, 
— her honor, her glory, her need, her dan- 
ger. They voted to give their money to her. 

Attica was a busy land. The pine forests 
on the mountains were full of men. There 
were the ringing of axes and the crashing of 
falling trees. Long lines of mules dragged 
logs down the hills and across the plains to 
the seashore. Here was the noise of saw 
and hammer, where carpenters were build- 
ing ships. Here, too, was the smoke of fire, 
where blacksmiths were making the sharp 
beaks of ships. Clumsy mule-carts creaked 



Themistocles 129 

across the plains, from the stone quarries to 
Piraeus. There stonecutters and masons 
were building docks. Housebuilders, too, 
were busy. For news of what Athens was 
doing spread through Greece. Many men 
came seeking work. These foreigners built 
their houses at Piraeus. So a busy little city 
began to grow up here. 

Off the shore were little boats going about 
all day. They seemed to carry nothing and 
to go nowhere. Aboard them were the 
young men of Athens, learning to be sailors. 
The boats were always being turned about; 
the sails were always being raised or low- 
ered. 

On a certain day, after three or four 
months of this work, one of these little boats 
came alongside a pier. Two young men 
leaped out. Their faces were tanned. Their 
short chitons were water-splashed. Their 
eyes were glad. 

"O ho!" cried one in a gay voice, break- 



130 Men of Old Greece 

ing into a run. "The sea ! The sea! It is 
a fine thing." 

The two young men ran along the pier, 
side by side. 

"I used to think it shameful for a man's 
hands to smell of ropes and oars," said the 
first; " but now, Milon, I am as proud of that 
smell as of the oil of Olympia." 

"Think of the days," answered Milon, 
" when we used to spend half our time in the 
gymnasium. The disc, the spear, the boxer's 
thongs, the race-course, the jumping weights, 
— they gave us strong muscles and quick 
eyes. But this, Demipho ! This is striving 
with the gods themselves. Will Hermes 
blow our ship north ? We make it go south. 
Will Poseidon beat her against the rocks ? 
We guide her off. Athenians have been 
landsmen. These little islands have lorded 
it over the sea. Let them be careful! 
Athens is learning to pull the oar and work 
the sail. We have already made iEgina smart. " 



Themistocles 



131 



" But Persia ! " said Demipho. " Shall we 
be able to hold out against her? King 
Xerxes builds a bridge a mile long. He 
sets his slaves to work, and in a few months 




ONE OF THE TEMPLES OF POSEIDON 

he has dug a trench from sea to sea for his 
ships to sail through. His army has been 
three years coming together. He has said 
that he will not rest until he has burned 
Athens. What can we do against such a 
king?" 



132 Men of Old Greece 

"Themistocles will find a way," replied 
Milon. 

"True," Demipho answered. "What 
can he not do ? He has built a fleet and has 
turned farmers and merchants into sailors." 

The two young men were walking along a 
country road. Before them stood up the 
steep Acropolis hill, with its temples. Other 
hills clustered around it. The houses lay 
among them. The young men came to the 
foot of the Pnyx. Streams of men were 
pouring toward it. All were talking ex- 
citedly. The words "Persians," "Xerxes," 
were spoken often. They all walked up the 
hill and showed little tickets to the keeper 
of the gate. Those tickets of sheepskin told 
that the men who held them had a right to 
go to the meetings of Athens. So they all 
passed in. 

After the sacrifice, Themistocles went 
upon the platform to speak. 

"Men of Athens," he said, "the Great 



Themistocles 133 

King is coming. He sits on his throne and 
sees his army drill. He waits only for the 
great bridge to be finished. Then he will 
cross the water into Greece. Again he has 
sent for earth and water. Some of our 
neighbors have given them to him. But 
most Greeks are still freemen. They have 
sent the messengers home empty-handed. 
What are those Greek freemen to do ? There 
are a hundred cities and more in Greece. 
Every one stands alone, a jealous foe of 
every other. But can they stand so against 
Persia and her million soldiers? We have 
enemies in iEgina and in Sparta. Our 
hearts have been hot with anger against 
both. But would you have Persians make 
slaves of Spartans ? Would you have Athens 
safe and see Delphi burned or see Persians 
run at Olympia? We are all Greeks and 
brothers. Shall we not stand shoulder to 
shoulder against Persia ? I propose a meet- 
ing of all the lovers of Greece. Let it be at 



134 Men of Old Greece 

Corinth, in the middle of Greece. I move 
that we send messengers to every city, tell- 
ing them of this plan." 

The men of Athens voted for that motion. 

On the day set, the wisest men from those 
Greek cities came together at Corinth. 
Themistocles spoke: 

"The first thing to say is that we are all 
friends. There are men here from cities 
that were once foes of Athens. We are foes 
no longer. We have enough of them in the 
Persian camp. This is no time to remember 
little things. There is only one thing to 
remember, — Greece." 

And those men vowed that all quarrels 
should stop. Men talked kindly together 
who had not long ago raised spear against 
each other. So they began to plan what 
to do. 

"The Great King sits in his camp across 
the sea," one Greek said, "waiting for his 
bridge. If we knew his numbers and the 



Themistocles 135 

kind of weapons and men, we could plan 
better. Let us send spies to steal into the 
camp and look about." 

It was done. The Greeks waited many 
days for the return of those spies. When 
they did come, they told this story: 

" We came to the rich city of the king and 
were looking about us. But the generals 
found us out and led us away to kill us. 
At the last moment the king sent, saying: 
' Bring the spies to me.' So we went. 

"There he sat like the statue of a god, 
high on a golden chair. He himself, in pur- 
ple robe, was all a glitter of gold and jewels. 
About him stood a thousand servants. 
They carried the king's napkin, the king's 
parasol, the king's perfume bottle, the king's 
fan, the king's cup, the king's wine bottle, 
the king's hand-basin. They knelt to offer 
him drink. They bowed to the floor when 
they spoke to him. 'Why are you here?' 
the king asked us. 'We have come to see 



136 Men of Old Greece 

your army and to tell the Greeks about it,' 
we answered, expecting to die. Then the 
king called his guards and said: 'Show 
these men about. Let them see everything, 
— my horsemen, my bowmen, my spearmen, 
my slingers, my runners, my chariots, my 
mules, my stores of food, my chests of gold.' 
So we walked for a whole day through that 
camp, seeing new things always. Never 
before had we seen so many men. It was 
like twenty Greek cities put into one. 
Surely we cannot fight with that army." 
But men who heard answered: 
"It is better to die with a sword in your 
hand and in the smile of the gods than to 
live to carry the king's fan. Why should 
we be discouraged ? True, half of Greece 
lies trembling under the Great King. But 
we are still free. Zeus and Apollo and 
Athene still sit on Olympus. Have their 
arms lost their strength ? Do not their 
arrows shoot as straight, and are their spears 



Themistocles 137 

not as sharp, as when they helped the Greeks 
against Troy ? " 

So with brave hearts they set to planning. 
Not long after that, word came that the 
Persian army had crossed the great bridge. 

"And so large was the army," men said, 
"that for seven days and nights the bridge 
was full of soldiers marching. There were 
men from all parts of the world: Greeks 
from across the sea in their bronze armor, 
Arabs on horses, men from India in white 
robes, savages in skins. Now they are 
marching down toward Greece. The ships 
are sailing along the coast near the army." 

Then the men at Corinth said to Sparta: 

"You are best in war. Send an army to 
the narrow pass at Thermopylae to stop the 
Persians. We will send the ships to lie near 
that army to stop the fleet." 

But Sparta sent only a few men under 
Leonidas. All the ships, however, sailed 
north, ready for work. And half of them 



138 Men of Old Greece 

all were Athenian, and Themistocles was 
with them. They lay waiting for several 
days. And while they waited, their courage 
faded away. Many captains said: 

"Let us sail south again. We cannot 
meet the Persians here. We are too far 
from home." 

So Themistocles was very busy. To one 
man he must say this thing, to another one 
that. Some he laughed at, others he threat- 
ened, trying to put courage into their hearts. 
And he succeeded. He kept the fleet to- 
gether. 

At last the Persian ships came into sight, 
and with them came the news : 

"Poseidon has not forgotten the Greeks. 
He has sent storms that wrecked many Per- 
sian ships." 

Now there lay the Persian fleet a few miles 
away. Here lay the Greeks looking at it. 

"What is there terrible about those 
ships ?" the Greek sailors said among 



Themistocles 139 

themselves. "How will those men fight? 
Do they know how to handle a ship ? Let 
us try them." 

So finally they fought, two hundred ships 
against a thousand. Three different times 
they had little battles, and in every battle 
the Greeks did brave work. At night a 
storm helped the Greeks by wrecking more 
of the Persian ships. The Greek boats 
were safe in the harbor out of the waves. 

But the last fight was a hard one. More 
than twenty Greek ships were sunk. And 
that same night the news came of the lost 
battle at Thermopylae. Then even Themis- 
tocles said: 

"Let us fight no more. Our ships need 
repairing. Thermopylae is lost. We can- 
not keep this north country. We must let 
the Persians have it. We must save the 
southern part. But let no man think that 
we have been beaten in this sea-fight. 
Wrecked Persian ships and dead Persian 



HO 



Men of Old Greece 



sailors tell that we were not afraid, and that 
we know how to handle a fleet. Greece 
has no cause to be ashamed of us. We will 
meet the foe again." 



pffi s 




MMMm 




AN OFFERING TO APOLLO AT THE TEMPLE OF DELPHI 

A while before the sea-battle, the people 
of Athens had sent to Delphi to ask Apollo 
about the war. This was the message they 
received : 

"When all inside Athens is lost, Zeus will 
give you wooden walls to save you. Do not 
wait for the army marching down, but turn 



Themistocles 141 

and flee. You will still be able to face them. 
O divine Salamis, you will cause men to die 
whether the harvest is gathered in or not." 

The Athenians could not understand this 
message. Some said, 

"What are the wooden walls ?" 

Others answered: 

" That must be the old wooden wall around 
the Acropolis. Are not our holiest temples 
there ? Is not the holy wooden statue of Athene 
there ? That is the place for us to flee to." 

But others laughed at that. 

"Impossible!" they said. "Not half the 
people of Athens could be crowded upon 
the Acropolis. Apollo would not give such 
advice." 

"Salamis will cause men to die," men 
repeated, thinking., "That must mean that 
we are to flee to Salamis. Then the Persians 
will come and kill us." 

"No, no!" others cried. "Zeus will save 
us and our children." 



142 Men of Old Greece 

"Why are you sad?" Themistocles said. 
"This is a good message. Is not the island 
of Salamis bare and rocky? Yet Apollo 
calls it divine. What makes it divine? 
The good fortune that will happen there. 
'Zeus will give us wooden walls,' Apollo says. 
But where? We are not to wait for the 
Persians, but to flee away. We must flee to 
Salamis. 'But there is no wooden wall at 
Salamis,' you say. Look at the sea. There 
lie our ships of wood, strong walls for brave 
men. What Apollo means is: 'Flee from 
Athens. Go aboard your ships. Meet the 
foe at Salamis. You will win a glorious 
battle.'" 

But some people doubted. 

"Themistocles can never see anything 
but his ships," they said. 

Others frowned, saying, 

"Apollo would not tell us to leave our 
homes, our father's graves, our temples, our 
holy statue*." 



Themistocles 143 

All this happened before the war began. 

After those first sea-battles were over, 
the Greek fleet came south. Themistocles 
returned to Athens. He found the people 
unhappy. 

"What shall we do?" they said to him. 
"Thermopylae is lost. The Persian army is 
marching down upon us. The Persian 
fleet is sailing down. Sparta will not send 
us help. She will take the Greek fleet and 
the Greek army farther south and leave us 
to the Persians." 

"And she will do right," Themistocles re- 
plied. "No army can hold our land now 
against the Persians. We must give it up. 
But there is a new Athens built for you. 
Will you scorn it? Has it not made you 
proud of it in these last few days ? You 
dread to leave your father's graves. Is that 
not better than to make Persian slaves of 
your fathers' sons ? Some time we will come 
back and raise new stones at those graves 



144 Men of Old Greece 

and write on them, 'Fathers of the men 
who beat the Persians on the sea.' Do you 
dread to leave the temples ? But the gods 
are not chained to their altars. Is it not 
Athene who sends victory to Athens in war ? 
Then was she not with us in these battles 
on the sea ?" 

"But our women and children cannot go 
on shipboard," men said. "What will hap- 
pen to them ?" 

That was a hard question. But in a few 
days word came from the city of Trcezen : 

"Athens and Trcezen are friends from of 
old. Let us keep your women and children. 
They shall be the guests of our city. They 
shall stay with us until you have some place 
for them. We will send your boys to school. 
Your children shall play in our parks. They 
will not be unhappy.' ' 

For days men talked about all these things 
in the streets. It was a sad city. But at 
last they voted to go away. 



Themistocles 



145 



When the last day came, the streets of 
Athens were a strange sight. Men, women, 
and children, rich men and slaves, were 
walking to the sea. Every man carried a 



-|§fgr 




THE ATHENIANS FLEEING TO THEHi SHIPS 

load of his most precious things. Mules, 
packed with clothes and furniture, followed. 
Wooden carts creaked along. At the shore 
all was thrown out upon the ground and 
loaded into boats. Early in the morning 



146 Men of Old Greece 

the priests had taken the most holy statues 
and dishes from the temples. They were 
now on a ship sailing to Salamis. Some of 
the wise old men went with them. 

"In Salamis is the new Acropolis," they 
said. 

As the people walked the streets, some 
wept, and some cried out to the gods. Some 
looked back and waved farewell at the empty 
city. Some squared their shoulders as if for 
the battle ahead. One gay company of 
young men ran through the streets and up to 
the temple of Athene on the Acropolis. Here 
they hung up the bridles of their horses, 
saying, 

" We change horses for ships." 

Shields hung over the columns in the 
porch of the temple. They had been won 
in old battles by Athenian warriors. Each 
young man took one down and put it upon 
his arm. Then they ran down the hill and 
off toward the sea, shouting, 



Themistocles 147 

"Victory for the new Athens!" 

The Greek fleet lay off the shores of Sala- 
mis, waiting. Then one day a man came 
rowing toward them, calling: 

"News from Athens!" 

Eagerly the sailors pulled him over the 
side of Themistocles' boat. 

"What is your news?" they cried; and 
their faces grew white. 

"The Persians have marched down from 
Thermopylae," he said. "They have burned 
Thespise. They have burned Platsea. The 
great army marched through our land of 
Attica. The grain fields burned behind 
them. Men and women fled before them. 
The temples of i\.thens are ashes. Xerxes 
and his army sleep in our houses. But 
a few of us gave trouble at the Acropolis. 
We stayed there when you went because we 
thought Apollo meant that. But the Per- 
sians shot burning arrows, and our wooden 
walls fell in fire. But even then the enemy 



148 Men of Old Greece 

could not get up to us, for we rolled great 
rocks down the steep sides. But at last a 
few crawled up where we had no guards. 
Then some of us died fighting. Some ran to 
the holy altar of Athene, but the Persians 
killed them there. When I saw that the fight 
was lost, I ran to tell you. I went down the 
underground stair and through the cave. 
Surely Athene guarded me as I stole around the 
great army. As I left the shore, I turned back 
and saw the roof of the temple fall and the 
flames shoot up. A smoke hangs over all 
Athens. She is dead and buried on her holy 
hill." 

Then all that shipload of men groaned 
and could not speak a word. But men 
from other ships were shouting questions, 
and at last the answer came, 

"Athens is burned, Xerxes has come." 
Then suddenly here and there sails were 
raised, and ships moved off. 




ATHENE 



Themistocles 149 

"What are you doing?" men from other 
boats called. 

"We are going home," came the answer. 
" Only fools will stay." 

"Only cowards will go," shouted an 
Athenian. 

"Have you no gods to make you 
ashamed?" 

"Do you call yourselves Greeks? Bah! 
They are Persians." 

Such were the cries that came from the 
Athenian boats and from some others. Yet 
many were silent, wishing to run away. 

The captains came together to plan what 
to do. A Spartan was general. They met 
on his boat. There was a long talk. At 
last the meeting ended, and Themistocles 
came rowing back to his own boat. His 
brow was heavy. His face was gloomy. 
He went aboard and walked to the bow. 
Here he stood looking off into the dark, 
towards Athens. His men watched him, 



150 Men of Old Greece 

and their hearts grew sick. After a while 
an old man, his friend, went close to him. 

"What do they plan to do?" he asked in 
a low voice. 

"To go south and wait before Corinth," 
Themistocles answered, without turning. 

"Do you know what will happen then?" 
said the friend. "If we leave Salamis, we 
shall never fight for any country. Every 
ship will go to its own city. Then not only 
will Athens be ashes, but Greeks will be 
slaves. Go to the Spartan again." 

Without a word, Themistocles walked to 
the side of the ship and got into his boat. 

"To the general's ship," he said to the 
rowers. 

As he came near, he called out, 

"I must see the general on business." 

"Come aboard," was shouted back. 

So Themistocles went aboard. He sat 
with the general alone in the bow of the boat. 

"If we leave Salamis, we shall scatter to 



Themistocles 151 

the four winds," he said. "The men are 
afraid. You know that. They will fly 
home if the flock moves. Call the captains 
together again. Let us talk further." 

For an hour Themistocles urged. At last 
the Spartan sent messengers to call the cap- 
tains. They came, and at once Themis- 
tocles began to talk. 

"Apollo has lent him his own tongue," 
said a man. 

"But why should this man talk?" cried 
another, mockingly. "He should have no 
vote. He has no country." 

Then Themistocles turned, and his eyes 
blazed. 

"Have we Athenians no country?" he 
said. "Our city is in ashes, but look!" 
He pointed to the Athenian ships. "There 
is our country. Of those four hundred ships, 
two hundred are Athenian." 

Then he turned again to the Spartan 
general. 



152 Men of Old Greece 

"If you stay here, we can save Greece. 
Apollo has promised Athens victory at Sala- 
mis. If you do not stay, then bid farewell 
to us and our two hundred ships. We will 
go to find a new home far west." 

That threat won. At last the captains 
voted to stay. 

On the next morning the Greeks saw the 
Persian fleet come sailing in from the north. 
All the host of the army, too, marched down 
the shore from Athens. 

"They have come to see us die," cried out 
a Corinthian. 

The Greeks lay facing the hosts of the 
Persians, while the king took time to hold a 
meeting and look over his ships. And all 
the time fear grew in the hearts of the 
Greeks. 

" We were fools to listen to Themistocles," 
men said. " He stays for the sake of Athens. 
We shall all die here for the sake of that dead 
city." 



Themistocles 153 

So men stood on their ships, scowling and 
talking together. By night their fears had 
grown so great that they called a meeting. 
The captains were crowded on the deck of 
the general's ship. They looked out on the 
Greek fleet as they talked. Far off, the 
Persian ships lay in the moonlight. They 
stretched for miles along the shore. 

"We will not stay here," the captains 
cried, "to be carved up by Persian swords." 

Then followed a long, angry talk. Once 
a sailor called Themistocles out. He soon 
came back with another man. The stranger 
said to the company : 

" Some of you know me. I am Aristides, 
the Athenian. I have been an exile from 
Athens. But I have come back now to 
fight for her. Are you talking of going 
away? It is too late. I have just come 
from iEgina. I could barely steal through 
the line of Persian ships. They are drawn 
up before you in a close half-circle. Behind 



154 Men of Old Greece 

you a half-circle of land shuts you in. You 
are in a trap. You must fight." 

There was some grumbling then, but 
most men lost their fear when it came to 
the touch. Every captain went back to his 
ship and made ready for a fight in the morn- 
ing. 

" Themistocles looked as though what 
Aristides told was no news to him," one man 
said. 

"Very likely his finger was in it some- 
where," another answered. 

And indeed it was. When he saw from 
the talk of the captains that they meant to go 
away, he sent a messenger to Xerxes, saying : 

"I come from the general of the Greeks. 
He is a friend to the Great King. The 
Greeks are going away, for they are afraid. 
If you would catch them, shut them in with 
your ships. So you can best conquer them 
and win great glory." 

And so the king had done. 



Themistocles 



155 



In the morning the Greeks saw the Per- 
sian ships around them. Back on the shore 
sat the king, high on his golden throne. 
And all about him glittered his soldiers. 




XERXES, THE GREAT KING ON HIS THRONE 



On the rocks of Salamis stood the old men of 
Athens, and some of the women and chil- 
dren. All these foes and friends were look- 
ing down on the little Greek fleet. 



156 Men of Old Greece 

"It is like a great theater," said an Athe- 
nian. "We are the actors. There is the 
audience. Who will clap their hands, and 
who will weep?" 

"And there is another audience," said a 
man. He pointed to the sky. "There sit 
all the gods watching." 

Soon the fighting men of the Greeks were 
called together on a few ships about the 
general. Then some of the captains spoke 
to them. Themistocles said: 

"For what do we fight? Not only for 
Athens, not only for Sparta, nor Corinth, 
nor iEgina, but for all of Greece. Do you 
fear those Persians ? Do you think that the 
gods of Greece will let them make slaves of 
the people that are dear to Olympus?" 

Then the fighting men went back to their 
boats. Most of the Greek ships had three 
rows of oars, one above the other. A man 
sat at every oar. Above the rowers was a 
deck. Along the sides went a bulwark. 



Themistocles 157 

Behind this stood the fighting men, fifteen 
or twenty for every boat. 

At last the trumpet blew, and the ships 
were rowed forward. Then there was such 
a fight as Greece had never had before. 
" The trumpet, with its clang, fired the hearts 
of the Greeks. Swiftly they came on with 
dashing oars. The Persians could hear a 
mighty shout and a song : 

" ' O sons of the Greeks, 

For the freedom of your land and the free- 
dom of your sons, 

For the shrines of the gods, for the graves of 
your sires! 

All now hangs on the fight.' 

"Then ship dashed her brazen prow at 
ship. At first the Persians stood against 
the foe, but their thousand ships were 
crowded in the narrow sea. They struck 
each other with their own brazen beaks 



158 Men of Old Greece 

and broke their own oars. And the Greek 
vessels hit them and broke their oars and 
overturned their ships. The water could not 
be seen, it was so filled with wrecks and men. 
The sea and the air were filled with wailing. 
The Persian boats that could, rowed away in 
flight. King Xerxes went mourning home." 

So the story was told in a play years after 
the battle. 

Salamis did not end the war. Part of the 
king's army stayed to fight it out. There 
was war on land for a year after that. Again 
the Persians camped in Athens. But at last 
the Greeks won a great battle. Then the 
Persians who were left marched home, never 
to trouble Greece again. 

So the men and women of Athens went 
back to their city. But it was no longer a 
city. The temples were piles of blackened 
stones. Old homes were changed to a cart- 
load of ashes. For miles about, the fields 
and hillsides were black. 



Themistocles 159 

" Men of Athens, do you see your work ?" 
Themistocles had said. "There is no time 
for mourning. How long before those black 
fields shall be yellow with grain ? How long 
before those black hillsides shall laugh with 
purple grapes ? How long before the black 
banks of Cephissus, there, shall be green 
with olive trees ? Were the vines and 
the trees that men burned those that your 
great-grandfathers planted ? What of that ? 
They had lived long enough. These new 
vines and trees will be the vines and the 
trees that the men of Salamis planted. 
Will not your children's children be more 
proud of that? Ages ago Athene brought 
an olive tree out of the ground for us. We 
guarded it lovingly in the yard of her temple. 
That holy tree burned in the Persian fire. 
But Athene did not mourn. Athenians of- 
fered sacrifice to her there on the ashes of her 
temple and her tree, and lo ! from the old 
roots a new sprout shot up tall as a man. 



160 



Men of Old Greece 



From that new sprout you shall get slips for 
new orchards, from Athene you shall get the 
courage to build a new city. See, yonder 
the unfinished walls of Pineus still stand. 




TIRAEUS: ATHENS IN THE DISTANCE; THE LONG WALLS 



Our ships are out on the sea keeping Per- 
sians behind their walls. Let us have a 
place to receive those brave ships, when they 
return. There is much to do: our own 
homes to rebuild; our orchards and vine- 
yards to plant; the walls of Athens to set up; 
our harbor to finish; the temples of the gods 



Themistocles 161 

to make anew. Which work shall come first, 
yours or that of Athens ? " 

Their work shows what their answer was. 
Two years after the war there was a strong 
wall around Athens. It was thirty feet high, 
with gates and towers. Another like it went 
around Pirseus. A pair of long walls 
stretched between the two cities. Perhaps 
altogether there were fifteen miles of wall. 
For some of the time men had worked on it 
night and day. They had put into it things 
that they loved: the columns of the fallen 
temples; broken altars of the gods; the 
gravestones of their fathers. 

"We cannot wait for the quarries," men 
said. "Let us take whatever we can lay 
our hands on. Sparta will stop our work, 
if we do not hurry. She is jealous. She 
would keep us a weak village. She wishes 
to be the only strong city. She may even 
send an army to stop us. But while Themis- 
tocles is in Sparta, we must work. He will 



162 Men of Old Greece 

hold her off with some wily words until we 
have finished." 

So they worked with their hands, while 
Themistocles worked for them with his head, 
and they built those great walls. 

Themistocles had been dead for many 
years. Athens was the richest and most 
beautiful city in Greece. At Piraeus marble 
docks and storehouses lined the shore, and 
they were full of grain and precious goods 
from afar. The city was built close, with 
fine houses along broad, straight streets. 
Here and there temples shone with soft 
colors. 

A straight road stretched through the low 
country to Athens. On either side of it 
stood up high stone-walls. Even in war 
men could walk safely from town to port. 

At the gate of Athens the wall spread out 
and went in a ragged circle about the city. 
Crooked streets wound among the little bare 
hills. Plain houses sat close together along 



Themistocles 163 

both sides. The men of Athens had spent 
their time and their money on the buildings 
of Athens, not on their own houses. 

The market-place was fenced about with 
offices of marble, with wide porches before 
them. On the walls were painted pictures 
that told of the glories of Athens. One 
was of the battle of Marathon. Before the 
porches stood statues of heroes. 

The city was dotted over with temples (a 
hundred or more), — temples of Heracles, of 
Theseus, of Athene, of Apollo, of Zeus, of 
Hermes, of Artemis, of Poseidon. Some 
of these buildings were large, with columns 
all about them. Some were small, with only 
one door. But all of them were marble, 
and most of them had painted bas-reliefs 
and statues. And inside of all were won- 
derful gifts of gold and of ivory and of 
bronze, marble statues, vases, tablets, tri- 
pods. At almost every street corner stood 
a statue of some god or hero. 



164 Men of Old Greece 

Just outside the wall was the burying- 
ground, where lay the heroes of Athens. 
And over every grave was a beautiful stone. 
There was carved a bas-relief of the dead 
person, showing him doing something that 
he had loved to do. The reliefs were painted 
in the colors of life. Often, too, gold neck- 
laces or bracelets or head-bands or bronze 
swords or spear-points glistened on them. 

In the middle of this beautiful city arose 
the Acropolis. Down one corner of the 
hill stretched the wide theater, with its 
marble seats. On the north side was the 
cave of Pan. 

In most places the sides of the Acropolis 
were steep, bare rock. But all the western 
end was a rich shrine of marble road and 
columns and roofs and bronze doors. The 
flat top was a grove of statues and lovely 
things that people had given to the gods, 
and out of this forest rose two temples and a 
great bronze Athene. 




£ H 



Themistocles 165 

The people of this wonderful city were 
holding a meeting on the Pnyx hill, as they 
had done in the days of Themistocles. A 
man, crowned with myrtle, was speaking 
from the platform. 

"In return for our help against Persia, 
the islands of the sea pour gold into our 
treasure-house. Our navy is the defender 
of Greece. Who built that navy? Our 
ships sail all seas and bring back to us the 
wealth of the world. Who made us sailors ? 
Look from this hill. Here circles our wall, 
and yonder stretches our walled road to 
Piraeus. Who built those walls and planned 
that port? Far off you can see Salamis. 
There stands the monument which tells that 
Greece drove Persia from the sea. Who 
won that battle ? A man spent his life to do 
these things. He dreamed of Athens by 
night and worked for her by day. And 
because he was a little vain and not smooth- 
spoken, our fathers exiled him from this 



166 



Men of Old Greece 



Athens that he built up from ashes. Per- 
haps he had worse faults. Men say so. 
He went to Persia after Athens pushed him 
out. But has a Persian king no work that 




EXILE OF THEMISTOCLES 



an honest man can do? Those who knew 
Themistocles best say that never once did 
he lose his love for Athens or plan harm to 
her. Indeed, some men say that he killed 
himself when the Great King asked him to 



Themistocles 167 

do that. Themistocles had his faults, but 
can we not forget them ? We have forgotten 
brave deeds long enough. Our city is full of 
statues, pictures, temples, tombs, that tell 
of the glories of that Persian war. Miltiades 
lies in our burying-ground. A tomb tells 
his name and his deed. His statue stands 
by our city hearth. Every soldier of that 
war has our honor. How long shall Themis- 
tocles be forgotten ? How long shall he lie 
in Persian soil ? Let him come back to this 
Athens that he loved and built. Let his 
tomb stand where he loved most to be — at 
Piraeus, where boats go in and'out, where our 
ships of war lie, where Salamis looks across. 
That tomb will add glory to our land." 

So it was done, and Themistocles came 
home. 



PHIDIAS AND THE PARTHENON 



PHIDIAS AND THE PARTHENON 

"T^HE night before, Athene's birthday had 
come. Nobody in Athens slept on that 
night. Around every temple door the street 
was loud with singing voices and dancing 
feet. It was bright with fluttering robes 
and flaring torches, and sweet with waving 
smoke of incense. 

In front of one door danced a chorus of 
men. They were in armor, as if they had 
come from a fight. The bronze glinted in 
the torchlight. People pressed about in a 
close circle. Their eager eyes watched the 
dancers. Slaves held the smoking torches 
above their masters' heads. The voices 
that had shouted the battle-cry were now 
singing : 

171 



172 Men of Old Greece 

"Of Pallas Athene, the savior of cities, I 
sing, 

Dread goddess, who has in her charge the 
works of war, 

Of falling towns and of battles and battle- 
din, 




GREEK GIRLS DANCING 



Who saves the hosts as they go to the fight 

or return; 
O hail, Athene! and give to us joy and 

srood luck." 



"Athene!" shouted the crowd. 
"And we are her chosen warriors," said 
one man to another. 



Phidias and the Parthenon 



173 



"Come to the altar of Here," said a man 
to his friend. "My daughter dances there 
with the other priestesses." 

They struggled 
through the moving 
crowds in the crooked 
streets. They groped 
their way through the dark, 
empty places. At last they 
came to another crowd, with 
the glare of torches around 
it. Flames leaped up, smoke 
waved above a thousand 
heads with their white fil- 
lets. Behind were the white 
temple columns, and at 
each side stretched the dark 
street. Here young girls athene 

were singing and helping the song with 
whirling bodies and clashing cymbals. 

" Of fairest Athene I sing, 
The gray-eyed, the wise. 




174 Men of Old Greece 

She was not born as others are born. 
She did not grow as others have grown ; 
But she sprang full grown, full armed, 
From the head of Zeus, 

And the gods stood about and watched with 
awe. 

" Quickly she leaped from the head 

Of the counselor Zeus, 

Shaking her spear and flashing her mail 

Till high Olympus trembled in dread. 

And the wide earth shook below 

At the maiden's strength, 

And the dark sea boiled and broke in foam. 

"Apollo, the glorious god, 

Reined in his steeds 

Till the maiden laid off her armor of gold, 

While her father watched proudly the 

counselor Zeus. 
So hail to thee, goddess Athene, 
Daughter of Zeus! 
So hail to thee, savior, the gray-eyed, the 

wise!" 



Phidias and the Parthenon 



175 



In the market-place, too, thousands of 
torches flared and smoked. A great space 
in the center was roped off and empty. But 
watchers pressed 
against the rope and 
crowded together all 
the way back to steps 
and porches. Some 
had even climbed to 
the low roofs and were 
looking down on the 
unsteady lights and 
moving heads. At last 
a chorus of boys began 
singing and dancing 
in the space roped off. 
They told the story of the naming of Athens : 
how in the olden days Athene and Poseidon 
together came to the city. They went to the 
Acropolis, where all men were met to buy 
and sell and talk. Those gods found a 
nameless town. Each said : "Call your city 




POSEIDON 



176 Men of Old Greece 

after me, and I will give you a precious gift." 
Then Poseidon struck the rock with his tri- 
dent. Out leaped the first horse, and the 
people were afraid. But Athene made an 
olive tree shoot softly up, and the people 
said: "We will have Athene for our god- 
dess." So Athens was named. 

The shrill music of a flute pierced far past 
the market. As the boys of the chorus sang 
to its sound, they acted the story: Zeus' 
headache; the swing of Hephaestus' ham- 
mer; Athene's leaping out; the raised hands 
and backward steps of the surprised gods; 
the glad running of Iris to tell the news. 

At the end of the dance the noise of clap- 
ping hands and the cries of "Good, good!" 
carried far through the open air. 

"The lads did well, Lacon," said a man. 
"I saw your son among them. He is a 
handsome boy." 

"Every day for a month," replied his 
father, "he has put an offering upon 



Phidias and the Parthenon 177 

Athene's altar and has prayed for grace in 
the dance." 

All night long the city was full of prayer 
and holy song and sacred dance. No god 
was forgotten. To every one was paid the 
thanks that was due him for yellow grain 
fields, or heavy vines, or thick-fleeced sheep, 
or plentiful rain, or warm sunshine, or good 
sailing winds, or health, or strength in the 
games. 

One chorus sang: 

"Come hither, Olympian gods, to our 
dance, and glorify it with your presence. 
In sacred Athens visit the city's hearth, 
where incense always burns, and visit her 
famous market-place. Accept our violet- 
twisted crowns, and drink offerings of spring- 
gathered herbs." 

As the morning began to come, the songs 
and dances ceased. The groups thinned 
before the temples. People snatched hasty 
breakfasts. By the time the sun was up, all 



178 Men of Old Greece 

of Athens was deserted, except the broad 
street of the Ceramicus. Here all was 
laughter and shouting and pushing. Youths 
on restless horses, warriors in full armor, 
old men in spotless linen himations, women 
in soft colors, jostled one another in the 
middle of the street. 

"Your horse is tramping on my hima- 
tion," cried a dandy to a young warrior on 
horseback. 

"Why is your himation in the street, 
then?" the warrior laughed back. "Is 
this a place for trailing robes?" 

"A soldier's chlamys is in no danger of 
being trampled upon," called another young 
warrior teasingly. 

"Do you not see that a himation is more 
becoming to our friend Aratus?" laughed 
some one else. "You will not find him in a 
soldier's cape if he can help it. Off with 
you, Aratus! See, there are the other 
women! Off with you!" and he pushed 



Phidias and the Parthenon 179 

him with his spear, while the crowd 
laughed. 

The porticoes at the side of the road were 
filled with men, old and young. A father 
was lifting up his little son. 




ATHENIAN WARRIORS, WEARING CHITONS 

"See," he said, pointing to a warrior, 
"there is the man who got the crown for 
bravery in our last battle. The arm that is 
under his chlamys has a deep wound." 

"A victor! A victor!" 



180 Men of Old Greece 

The shout was louder than all the noise 
of laughter and talk. A dozen young men 
were pushing people to right and left. They 
had a man on their shoulders and were run- 
ning ahead of him, while he swayed and 
laughed above people's heads. Everybody 
turned to look, and then shouted his name. 

Women and girls were crowded around 
the doors of the sacred storehouse, from 
which priests were bringing out platters and 
vases of gold. The priests put them into 
the hands of the waiting girls and women. 
Heralds were hurrying about among the 
crowd, shouting orders. The Panathenaic 
procession was forming. 

On the porch of a little temple was stand- 
ing a small group of men, less noisy than the 
rest. 

"This festival is one of the best things in 
our country," one man said. "Here are 
fishermen from the seashore, timber-cutters 
from Hymettus, quarrymen from Pentelicus, 



Phidias and the Parthenon 181 

shepherds from the mountains, grape- 
growers from the hills, farmers from the 
plains, poets and musicians from the streets 
of our city, guests from the colonies. All 
are talking together, finding out new things, 
making new friends. All are learning to 
call Athens 'mother.'" 

Just then a herald came up to the men. 

" We are ready for the officers of the city," 
he said. "Will you come, Pericles?" 

The man who had been speaking stepped 
down from the porch. He turned to his 
friend. 

" I will see you on the Acropolis, Phidias," 
he said. 

In a little while the procession was ready. 
Flute-players and trumpeters were first. Be- 
hind them young men were leading the cattle 
for the sacrifice. There were a hundred 
animals, the fattest, the most beautiful, in 
all Attica. Their sleek sides shone with 
careful rubbing. Gold tips glistened on 



182 



Men of Old Greece 



their horns. Garlands of flowers swayed 
from their slow-moving heads. And there 
were a hundred rams, with washed wool and 
hanging garlands. Behind these animals 




ATHENE, FROM AN EARLY VAE 



walked the priests of Athens, in their long, 
old-fashioned robes, rich in color and 
glistening with gold embroidery. Wreaths 
of flowers crowned their heads, and garlands 
hung loose over their shoulders and arms. 
Then came people carrying the holy 



Phidias and the Parthenon 183 

dishes, to serve Athene's feast on the Acrop- 
olis. There were women with baskets of 
bread and silver plates of cakes, young men 
with great black and red vases of wine, girls 
balancing on their heads baskets of flowers 
and fruit. 

More than a thousand people followed 
with gifts for Athene, — little statues of terra- 
cotta, dishes of gold, bronze tripods, marble 
tablets with carved letters, gold-embroidered 
himations, necklaces of amethyst, carved 
golden bracelets set with coral. 

And best of all the gifts was the great robe 
for Athene's statue. It hung as a sail in a 
beautiful ship. The boat rolled on hidden 
wheels, as though the wind itself carried it. 
The great yellow robe of soft wool waved 
gently. Athene and the giants in gold 
embroidery seemed to be moving in battle. 

Behind the robe came the proudest men 
in Athens, the victors in the Panathenaic 
games. There was the best jumper, the 



184 



Men of Old Greece 



best disc-thrower, the fastest runner, the 
best boxer, the best wrestler. The winner 
in the chariot-race rode in his chariot and 
reined in his nervous horses. There was 




GREEK CHARIOT 



the winner of the torch-race, with his torch 
still burning. The band of youths who had 
won the war-dance walked together, with 
swords in hand and helmets on their heads. 
The procession marched between rows of 



Phidias and the Parthenon 185 

low houses. On the flat roofs stood people 
looking down. As the animals and their 
leaders and the bearers of gifts passed, the 
people on the house-tops waved their ta- 
rnations and threw down flowers ; but when 
the victors came, the men shouted, and the 
women leaned over and showered them with 
blossoms. 

"The victors, the victors!" they cried. 
And the victors looked up and smiled and 
caught at the flowers. 

"There is the beauty of youth," men 
thought, as they looked at these victors. 
"But age, too, is beautiful. See those old 
men, with bodies well trained, still strong 
and straight. In their faces shine not youth, 
but wisdom and goodness." 

For the handsomest old men of Athens 
had been chosen to walk behind the victors. 
They carried branches of Athene's olive. 

Young warriors on prancing horses fol- 
lowed them. The wind lifted their bright 



186 Men of Old Greece 

capes and showed their shining armor 
beneath. After them came all the warriors 
of Athens, — some on horse, some on foot. 
Some carried fresh wounds from late battles. 
Again the shouts of the watchers rang loud. 

"No wonder Athens has luck in battle," 
said one of the visitors. "See the number 
of her warriors, the richness of their armor!" 

No freeman of Athens was willing to be 
left out on this great day. 

"I will walk in Athene's procession, to do 
honor to my goddess and my city," every 
man said. 

So, in their most beautiful himations, men 
walked quietly together, and their wives and 
daughters followed. Beside these women 
were others, carrying parasols and little 
stools. They were foreigners who had come 
to live in Athens. 

" We are foreigners in the city," they said, 
" but we love it. We are willing on this day 
to make ourselves servants, if we may walk 







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Phidias and the Parthenon 



187 



in the greatest and most beautiful procession 
of all Greece." 

Not only the house-tops were filled with 
people looking on. In open places plat- 
forms had been built, and they were filled 
with gay men and women. People stood in 




WOMEN OF ATHENS AT THE PANATHENAIC FESTIVAL 

the porches of temples, or crowded the cor- 
ners of the market-place. They were visit- 
ors from all the world, come to see this great 
festival. Athenian women were there who 
could not take the long walk, and fathers and 
mothers who were too old to go, and children 
who were too young. Houses and columns 
and statues were hung with garlands of 



188 Men of Old Greece 

flowers. The city would not be so beauti- 
ful again for four years, until the next Pan- 
athenaic festival. 

In the distance, all the time, ahead of 
the procession, the Acropolis arose. The 
great bronze Athene watched her people 
come. Her shining spear seemed to beckon 
them. 

Now they had left the market-place and 
were winding up the steep front of the 
Acropolis. All foreigners had stayed behind. 
Only freemen of Athens might set foot on 
the Acropolis,— men and women with heroes 
for ancestors. They looked up lovingly at 
the tall bronze Athene. The people had 
had that statue made at the end of the Per- 
sian wars. They had found on the field of 
Marathon many bronze helmets and swords 
and spear-points of the Persians. They had 
gathered them together and had taken them 
to Athens and given them to Phidias, saying: 

"Athene has helped us in this war. We 



Phidias and the Parthenon 189 

wish to honor her. You are a great artist. 
Make us a statue of her from this bronze. 
We will put it upon the Acropolis. Then 
she can look over Athens. We shall live 
under her eyes. Give her a shield and 
a helmet and a spear, as though she were 
ready for battle. Make her tall, so that 
sailors in their ships can see her shining 
spear and helmet as they come into Athens; 
then they will know that the strong Athene 
guards our city." 

Before the Persian war, temples and 
statues had covered the Acropolis. Now it 
was littered with broken stone and wooden 
storehouses. Rough rock altars stood up 
here and there. On this day they were 
bright with flowers. 

The long procession walked past the 
bronze Athene and among the ruins, and 
stopped before a little temple. It was bare 
and unbeautiful. It had been put up in a 
hurry after the war. Here was the sacred 



190 Men of Old Greece 

olive tree. Here was Athene's holy statue, 
made of olive wood. It had dropped from 
the sky, men said, ages ago. It had gone on 
a ship to Salamis during the Persian wars. 
It was not beautiful, but it was the most 
precious thing in Athens, a gift from Athene's 
own hand. It was a post with a head carved 
on the top. The face was painted. Real 
hair hung from the head. A robe covered 
the post-shaped body. For hundreds of 
years Athenians had prayed at the altar 
before this statue, and it had grown dear to 
them. 

Now the priestesses of Athene stood on 
the temple-porch to meet the procession. 
Maidens took down the beautiful robe from 
the ship and carried it to the priestesses, 
who took it into the temple. While the great 
crowd outside sang in praise of Athene, the 
priestesses took off the old robe and folded 
it and put it away in a treasure-chest. Then 
they put on the new one, clean and shining. 



Phidias and the Parthenon 191 

And when it was done, they prayed to the 
goddess. Then they went out again and 
received the other gifts for Athene. They 
carried them in and piled them by the altar. 
It was a beautiful mass of precious things. 
After that they returned to the singing 
crowd, and all together marched on to the 
huge rock altar of Athene. 

Then the umpires of the games stepped 
out before the people. One of them carried 
olive crowns in his arms. Others had bas- 
kets holding small black and red vases. 

" Let Creon, the winner of the boys' foot- 
race, approach," called one of the officers. 

A slender lad stepped forward. He held 
his head high. The breath came quickly 
through his nostrils. The officer lifted a 
wreath and put it on the boy's head. 

"I crown you Athene's victor," he said. 

That whole great crowd shouted with joy. 

"Creon, Creon! the Panathenaic victor!" 

The officer gave Creon one of the vases. 



192 Men of Old Greece 

It was filled with olive oil. That oil was 
made from the fruit of Athene's holy olive 
tree. 

The boy took the vase and stepped back 
among his friends. They clapped him on 
the shoulder and talked to him twenty at 
once. It was a great thing to be victor in 
the Panathenaic games. 

Meanwhile the officers were calling up the 
other victors. And as every one stepped 
back with his prizes, the happy crowd 
shouted. 

After it was all over the priests walked to 
the altar. The men led up the animals of 
the sacrifice. 

"Sing praises to Athene ! 
Give thanks to her for victory, 
Give thanks for wisest counsel, 
For skill with loom and spindle, 
With sculptor's maul and chisel: 
Give thanks for many blessings. 
Sing praises to Athene!" 



Phidias and the Parthenon 193 

So sang the crowd; and while they sang, 
the priests killed the animals with their holy 
knives. The winner of the torch-race put 
his flame to the fuel on the altar. Soon the 
smoke of the sacrifice was rising to Athene, 
and the sweet smell of it was floating over 
the Acropolis. Then a herald stood by the 
altar and prayed, 

"May the gods bless the Athenians and 
the Platseans." 

After that all the people sat there by 
the altar and feasted, — a great family as 
Athene's guests. They talked of her good- 
ness, of the wars of Athens, of the officers 
of the city, of new laws, of the games just 
over. 

"Our great festival is finished," said a 
man to his neighbor. "I wonder what 
Athene will give us in the next four years to 
thank her for." 

"The wisdom of Pericles will be one 
thing, I hope," replied his neighbor. "I 



194 



Men of Old Greece 



believe he has great things in his mind for 
Athens. We never had so wise an officer 
in the city before, I think." 

Af ter the feast some 
people hurried home. 
Some went away to- 
gether for gay ban- 
quets. Others were 
off for the gymna- 
sium. A few stayed 
and strolled about on 
the Acropolis. 

Pericles and Phid- 
ias walked slowly to- 
gether. 

"I am not willing, 
Phidias," said Peri- 
cles, " that this beautiful procession shall any 
longer end on a ruined hill. This Acropolis 
is the head of Athens. It should be beauti- 
ful, as she deserves. Our walls are done. 
Piraeus is built. We are lords of the sea. 




■mm 

PERICLES 



Phidias and the Parthenon 195 

We are rich, but we are not yet beautiful. 
Persian fire ate our temples and statues. It 
is time that we build them again. It is my 
dream to make Athens queen in loveliness. 
I wish her to be the shrine of beauty, where 
men shall come from all the world to fill 
their eyes and their souls. 

"Years ago men started the work, — 
Themistocles and Cimon. See, there is 
the broad foundation where the temple of 
Athene was to rise. Here are the steps that 
were to lead up to it. The gods and the peo- 
ple need new temples. Let us get to work, 
Phidias." 

" It is a glorious thing to do," said Phidias. 

The two men stayed for a long time, look- 
ing at the ruins, measuring distances. At 
last, as they went down the hill, Pericles 
said: 

"Talk with Ictinus to-morrow. He is, 
surely, the best architect in Greece. Make 
your plans, then get your artists together 



196 Men of Old Greece 

and begin the sculpture. I will send work- 
men to the quarries immediately." 

Soon after that the Acropolis was busy 
with workmen. They were cleaning away 
the broken stones, measuring and marking 
lines on the rock platform. Stonecutters 
were chiseling blocks into shape. Drivers 
were urging their mules up the slope, drag- 
ging loads of marble. 

Miles away, on Pentelicus, quarrymen 
were splitting out great pieces and sending 
them crashing down the slides. Stone- 
cutters were smoothing and squaring them. 
And all along the road, from Pentelicus to 
Athens, were creaking carts loaded with 
marble. 

Phidias' shop, too, was a busy place. As 
people passed it, they looked with glowing 
eyes at the bare walls. 

"Behind that wall," they said, "the 
beauties of Athens are being made." 

They watched the dozen men going in. 



Phidias and the Parthenon 197 

"There is a young sculptor from Argos," 
one said to another. "There is one from 
iEgina, and another from Thebes. Peace 
or war makes no difference to artists. They 
come from cities that hate us, because they 
love beauty and Phidias." 

Then Phidias himself came around a 
corner. He was an old man, with bald head 
and stooping shoulders. He was staring 
far ahead. 

"He is thinking of his statues," a watcher 
said to his friend, in a low voice. "They 
say that Athene sends him visions in 
dreams." 

When Phidias went into the shop on this 
day, his pupils were already at work. Many 
young men had come from the cities of 
Greece to learn under him. Some few did 
good work. These he set to sculpturing a 
statue or a slab. The poorer workers he set 
to chiseling out the first rough shapes. Now 
there was a gay chatter and humming of 



198 Men of Old Greece 

songs as the mallets struck and the chips 
flew. 

Clay models stood on tables, for the 
sculptors to work from. Phidias' charcoal 
sketches and paintings on wood lay about. 
The floor was white with marble dust. 
Corners were littered with broken pieces 
and cast-away statues left unfinished. The 
men were in short chitons. Clothes, hair 
and skin were dusty with marble. 

Phidias stopped before a slab. A young 
man was working at it. He was sculptur- 
ing a woman carrying a basket. Phidias 
put his hand on the young man's shoulder. 

"I am afraid it will not do, Alcestor," 
said he, in a kind voice. "It is stiff and 
awkward. There are too many folds in the 
robe. People will stop to count them. 
They will forget what it is all about. It is 
the same with the hair. Hair does not hang 
in such precise locks, does it? You work 
carefully. Your hand is skillful. But you 



I 



Phidias and the Parthenon 199 

must train your eyes to see what is beautiful. 
Look at this figure." He led him to another 
slab. "You think of what this woman is 
doing. You think of the procession in 
which she walks. You remember the god- 
dess whom she is going to worship. You do 
not notice her hair or the folds of her robe. 
Let us try again." 

So the unfinished slab was thrown into 
the corner. Phidias took off his long hima- 
tion and stood in his short chiton. Then he 
set to work helping his pupil to start again. 

After a while he went on to another piece 
of work. He stood before it, smiling, 
watching the sculptor. The young man 
was making his chisel fly, from foot to head, 
from waist to shoulder. He stepped quickly 
to and fro. He bent his head from side to 
side. Phidias laughed. 

"You are a dashing artist, Charicles. 
You remind me of Phaethon, who tried to 
drive the sun's chariot. You must learn to 



200 Men of Old Greece 

drive first. Steady, steady! Do not make 
a stroke before you know what it will do. 
See!" 

He took the artist's chisel and mallet and 
chipped delicately at 
the marble. 

"The arm is well 
shaped, but it is 
rough. The muscles 
stand too high." 

At first he talked as 

he worked, explaining. 

But soon he forgot 

everything except the 

statue. His pupil saw 

slowly grow under the master's tool a strong 

arm, where the muscles seemed almost to 

move. Some of the artists had gathered 

around to see Phidias work. At last he 

stopped and looked up at them, smiling. 

" But I must go to my Athene," he said. 

He gave back the tools and walked away 




Phidias and the Parthenon 201 

to a quieter corner. Here stood a tall figure 

wrapped in damp cloths. These he carefullj 

unwound. A helmet of yellow clay peeped 

out, then a strong face, a raised hand. And 

at last the whole figure was bare. The 

rough edges of the robe, the shapeless hand, 

the smeared lips, showed that it was still 

unfinished. 

"Quickly she leaped from the head 

Of the counselor Zeus, 

Shaking her spear and flashing her mail 

Till high Olympus trembled in dread 

And the wide earth shook below 

At the maiden's strength, 

And the dark sea boiled and broke in 

foam," 
chanted Pericles from the doorway. 

Phidias turned quickly. 

"Welcome, Pericles," he cried; "come 
in. It is a long time since you visited us. 
Yes, this is Athene." 

"She is wonderful," said Pericles. "She 



202 Men of Old Greece 

moves. I can tell from her alone what is 
happening in the whole picture." 

"But come," Phidias urged; "let me 
show you the rest of the work. Here is the 
Zeus that Alcamenes is chiseling. I shall 
put the finishing touches upon it in a few 
days. Here is the block of marble that is to 
make Iris. The stonecutter will begin to 
shape it to-morrow. This is the clay model. 
She is running to tell the world of Athene's 
birth. Three nights ago I dreamed how 
to make her. The gods are helping me, 
Pericles." 

"And you are helping Greece," Pericles 
answered. "These pupils of yours will go 
back to their cities and fill them with 
beauty, as you are filling ours." 

"I hope they will do something," said 
Phidias; "but they cannot do so much as I 
shall be able to do. They have no Pericles 
to put them to work. They can make 
beautiful statues, but they cannot make a 



Phidias and the Parthenon 203 

whole beautiful city. That is the task you 
have set me. But come and talk while I 
work. I cannot answer, but I can listen." 

So, while the artist walked about his 
figure, carving the lips with his tool, smooth- 
ing the cheeks with his thumb, shaping the 
hand, stepping back to look at his work, 
Pericles sat on a block of marble and 
talked. 

"I can see this new Athens, Phidias," he 
said. "The temple of Athene and a new 
Erechtheum are glowing on the Acropolis. 
Gates, porches, steps, are shining on the 
slope. Another theater on the hillside 
rings with music. Beautiful halls surround 
the market-place. A temple honors every 
god. 

" Themistocles saved Athens from the 
Persians. Themistocles and Cimon gave 
her walls and ships and power. We will 
give her beauty. That will be as great a 
service, I think. Our city wants good men. 



204 Men of Old Greece 

We will make them with beautiful statues, 
buildings, pictures. Perhaps the gods are 
good because they see nothing ugly in 
Olympus. Let us try it with men in Athens. 
Let them, when they pray, see statues, ceil- 
ings, walls, that remind them of Olympus. 
You have seen how happy people are when 
they are looking at a beautiful picture. Let 
us give them many such chances to be 
happy. 

"And how people will love a city that 
shines with beauty! They will walk about 
happy, looking at temples and statues, and 
saying proudly to themselves: 'This is our 
city. She is worth the best we can give her, 
— honesty, kindness, bravery.' 

"I stood to-day gazing at your bronze 
Athene. My heart grew strong. I said to 
myself: 'My enemies, my worries, are only 
little things. I will keep on at my work and 
fear nothing.' Surely her brave lips have 
put courage into many men. Surely her 



Phidias and the Parthenon 205 

calm eyes have soothed many angry hearts. 
We need more such statues." 

Phidias turned from his modeling, 
"And one of them must be in the new 
temple," he said. "But what shall it be? 
I am all in the dark. I have made many 
Athenes, but I am not satisfied. This one 
must be truer than any one yet. Athene 
has so many sides! She is the fierce god- 
dess of war. She is the loving one who 
teaches me to work with my hands. She is 
the giver of health. She is the goddess of 
wise counsel. She is wonderful always, 
but how is she best ? Which way will make 
her people love her most, will best please 
the savior, the lover of Athens ? I cannot 
tell. Perhaps she will tell me in a dream." 
The work on the Acropolis had been 
going on for seven years. Pericles was 
there watching one afternoon. Workmen 
were bringing up the pieces of sculpture 
for the metopes from Phidias' shop. Some 



206 Men of Old Greece 

were already there, and men were hoist- 
ing them into place. Others had been 
set, and scaffolds hung below them. Here 
artists were standing putting on the last 
touches of the chisel. Stonecutters were 
making the grooves in the tall columns. 
Others, at a little distance, were cutting 
joints on marble blocks. Pulleys and ropes 
were creaking. Mallets and chisels were 
pounding. Men were shouting orders. 

Pericles found Phidias in a little wooden 
shop. Here it was more quiet, but just as 
busy. Goldsmiths, with little hammers, 
were beating out plates of gold. Ivory 
workers were sawing great tusks into strips, 
or were carving the thin pieces. 

"And here you are making the beautiful 
Athene!" Pericles said. 

Phidias looked up from the gold he was 
hammering. 

"Yes," he answered. "Did you see the 
core for it in the temple ? It is all finished." 



Phidias and the Parthenon 207 

"I saw it," laughed Pericles; "but I con- 
fess that it does not look to me much like a 
statue or anything else beautiful. I call it 
a tangle of wood and iron. But I will trust 
you to make it beautiful," he laughed again. 
"Every one here seems busy." 

"I have not even had time," Phidias said, 
" to go down to the shop and find how things 
are there." 

"I will go and see and report to you," 
said Pericles, and was off. 

As he walked through the door of the shop, 
it seemed to him a different place from the 
one he had been used to see. There was 
little ringing of chisels and noise of moving 
blocks. In the corners and along the wall 
stood finished statues. Some were wrapped 
in great cloths, but some were uncovered. 
Artists were working on these, tinting the 
white marble with soft colors. One of the 
young men turned as he heard a footstep. 

"Ah, Pericles!" he cried; "you are in a 



208 



Men of Old Greece 



glorified shop; Athene smiles at us," point- 
ing to a marble statue. "Zeus, Apollo, 
Hephaestus, Poseidon," still pointing here 
and there at different 
statues. "We are 
among the gods." 

"And you have 
lived among the gods 
for seven years," said 
Pericles. 

The artist's gay 
smile vanished. 
Quickly his face 
flushed, and his eyes 
glowed. 

" Yes," he said soft- 
ly; "and it has been 
a blessed life. I have 
had these calm faces 
looking upon me day after day. I have seen 
what a man can do with marble. I have 
seen Phidias dreaming, dreaming and mak- 




HEPHAESTUS 



Phidias and the Parthenon 209 

ing perfect beauty. I have felt my own 
hands grow skillful, and my eyes trained to 
see loveliness. I cannot tell which of these 
things has been best." 

Another artist had come up to listen. 

"It has been a wonderful time for us all," 
he said. "Oh, to do something worth 
doing! That is joy. I traveled for a little 
in Persia a few years ago. The idleness of 
it disgusted me. Themistocles did a good 
thing when he set you Athenians to work. 
And you have not forgotten your lesson. 
Work, work! You can feel it in the air of 
Athens." 

" And we are not drudges, either," said the 
other artist, an Athenian. ' ' We work because 
we like to work. I have seen men in Egypt 
building a temple. They were driven like 
slaves. They must have hated that building. 
We love every stone that goes into this temple. ' ' 

"We must thank the gods that we are 
Greeks," said Pericles. 



210 Men of Old Greece 

"And the pupils of Phidias," added the 
artist. 

The sun was sinking below the mountains. 
The new temple cast a long shadow on the 
hilltop. Workmen were gathering up their 
tools. The Parthenon was finished. On 
the next day the festival of Athene would 
begin. Five days later the people of Athens 
would give this temple to the goddess and 
would worship there for the first time. 

A group of workmen stood off, looking at 
the building. 

"I am proud to be a stonecutter," said 
one. 

"Every stone, every joint, perfect!" said 
another. "It will stand for a thousand 
years." 

" We have laughed at Ictinus for his fussy 
notions," another said, "but it was worth 
while. Those columns have wings; they 
seem so light. Oh, the trouble we had 
getting the curve right!" 



Phidias and the Parthenon 211 

"And the floor!" laughed a fourth man. 
"Ictinus would not have it flat. 'If it is 
flat, it will not look flat,' he said. He was 
so particular about the curve that my eye 
has learned to see a bump half a hair high." 

"But no one will think of those things 
when he looks at the building," said the 
first man. "People will see the rich color, 
the shining columns, the shadowed porch, 
the lifelike statues. Oh, it is perfect!" 

Again the Panathenaic procession wound 
up the front of the Acropolis. Every eye 
was big, every breath came quick. For 
years people had watched this temple grow, 
— glistening white walls, columns, roof. 
Then they had seen the dark blues and reds 
painted upon the flat spaces. The great 
statues were lifted up and set where they 
belonged. The carved slabs were put into 
place. Scaffolds had hung upon the build- 
ing for artists and sculptors to work from. 
At last the scaffolds had been taken down. 



212 Men of Old Greece 

All this the people had seen daily as they 
worked in the city streets. But few had 
been close to the work. Guards at the gate 
had kept visitors away, but now they were to 
see everything. 




As the procession reached the top of the 
hill and started along the flat ground, every 
eye was on the Parthenon. More slowly 
and more slowly people walked, looking. 
They had no words to say. The building 
floated before them more lovely than their 
dream. The deep, still porches, the dashes 
of warm color, the calm, white columns' 



Phidias and the Parthenon 213 

stretching away from them, the story in 
tinted marble, — all these things tied their 
tongues and drew their hearts out of them. 

Here in the pediment were Athene and 
Poseidon striving for Athens. There stood 
their horses and chariots, large as life. 
Poseidon angrily turned to go. Athene 
joyfully strode to step into her chariot. 
And the pediment was crowded with her 
happy friends. All these statues shone with 
bronze and gold and color. Below were 
the great white columns and the shady 
porch. The wall at the back was bright- 
ened with painted and gilded vines and 
bands. The porch stretched down the long 
side and all around the building. Under 
its roof, at the top of the flat wall, the people 
saw in painted marble relief the very pro- 
cession in which they were marching. It 
was going, as they were going, toward the 
east. 

All this they saw in the soft shadow of the 



214 



Men of Old Greece 



morning sun. Then they turned the corner 
and saw the eastern end in a flood of golden 
sunshine. Every blue and red background 
in metope or pediment glowed. The gilded 



iC'Gi:. 



. 







EAST END OF THE PARTHENON 



eaves, the golden ornaments on peak and on 
statues, burned. The level beams of the 
sun shot under the broad porch. They 
shone upon the gods seated there in marble 
relief above other columns, waiting to 



Phidias and the Parthenon 215 

receive the procession. And in the pedi- 
ment Athene had just sprung from the head 
of Zeus. "And the gods stood about and 
watched with awe." 

The people could be silent no longer. 
They forgot the holy prayers to come. They 
shouted, 

"Athene, Athene!" 

And for a minute they turned to talk 
among themselves. 

"I feel as though I were treading the 
meadow of Olympus and gazing at the gods 
themselves," said one. 

"It seems like a living thing," spoke some 
one else. 

After a moment of gazing, the procession 
began to march in through the great bronze 
doors. As soon as people passed the thresh- 
old, they fell silent. For there, far in the 
great, dim room, shone a statue. It was lit 
by one wide beam of sun. Tall as the 
room, Athene looked mildly down upon 



216 Men of Old Greece 

the hushed crowd. Her trailing robe, the 
helmet, the shield that rested at her feet, 
were all of gold, richly carved. The Vic- 
tory that stood in her outstretched hand 
was of gold. Her face and neck, Jier arms, 
her feet that pushed out from under her 
robe, were of soft-tinted ivory. In the half- 
darkness she shone softly, as the real goddess 
might have done, if she had stepped down 
from Olympus. Looking into her calm 
face, people forgot their griefs and worries. 
Many men remembered the words of the 
old poem, 

"Pallas Athene does not permit me to 
tremble." 

Then the room rang with a great song 
from the people of Athens: 

"Athene, we stand at thy feet, 
We lift our hands in prayer. 
Thy ears are filled with the prayers of the 
world, 











INTERIOR OF THE PARTHENON 



Phidias and the Parthenon 217 

Thy nostrils breathe the smoke of a 

thousand shrines, 
And yet thou wilt not forget the town of thy 

name. 
Thou art wise; make us wise. 
Thou art brave; make us brave. 

"Oh ! ward off war from our town 

And fill our walls with peace. 

Thy house shall be rich, Athene, with gifts ; 

The walls shall be hung with picture and 

slab, 
The corners heaped with vases of gold, 
And incense burning above thy head, 
The columns hung with broidered cloth, 
The pavement piled with jars of wine, 
The dimness lit with shining gems, — 
All these we will bring in our love for thee. 
Come down, Athene, and live in thy house ; 
Come down, Athene, and bless thy town." 



SOCRATES 



SOCRATES 

IT was in Athens, after the Persian war. 
The street was only a crooked, dusty lane. 
The rows of houses were like walls lining the 
road. Along the street came a man. All 
at once he stopped, slapped his leg, and said : 
"O ho! Sophroniscus has a boy!" 
He had stopped in front of a poor, mud- 
plastered house. A little branch of olive 
hung on the door. As he stood there, a great 
knock came from the inside of the house. 
The man jumped away. Out swung the 
wooden door. It half blocked the narrow 
street. A man came out and shut it behind 
him. 

"Good-morning, Sophroniscus. So you 
have a little son ? Happy man !" 



222 Men of Old Greece 

"Yes, a little son, Gylippus! I am going 
now to the temple of Here, to make her a 
thank-offering. Sogood-by! But you must 
come to the naming-feast." And off he ran 
down the street. 

On the tenth day Gylippus did come, and 
many other friends. Sophroniscus was only 
a poor stonecutter. He had no servants to 
tend the door. His brother was opening it 
for visitors on this day. The guests walked 
into the little open court and stood chatting 
there. After a time, Sophroniscus came out 
to them. 

"Good-day, my friends; I am glad to see 
you. Come in and be seated. I have no 
grand house nor entertainment to offer you." 

" That's a gay himation you have in honor 
of the new baby. The red border!" said a 
friend, smiling. 

"Oh, even a poor man must have a new 
himation at the naming-feast. But you 
shall see the baby." 



Socrates 223 

He went into another room and came 
back carrying a wee baby. It was a stiff 
little bundle. A narrow cloth was wrapped 
around and around, from feet to neck. 

"What big eyes he has," said a woman. 

"He has a lusty voice; he will be an ora- 
tor," Gylippus said. 

Everybody had something to say about 
the baby. 

"Now, friends," said Sophroniscus, "if 
you will come to the altar, I will give him 
his name." 

They walked to one corner of the court. 
A little wooden altar, with a clay statue of 
Zeus, stood there. Some of the guests had 
brought gifts. They placed them on the 
altar, to ask Zeus to be kind to the boy. 
Sophroniscus, holding the baby in his arms, 
walked three times around the altar. He 
stopped before it and prayed, saying: 

" O Father Zeus, here is my little son; I will 
call him Socrates. Do thou be kind to him." 



224 Men of Old Greece 

Then they all went into the room again 
and had a feast and talked of the little 
Socrates, promising that he should be a 
great sculptor or a great athlete or a great 
orator. But he grew up to be a greater 
man than they dreamed of. 

The little Socrates had not much care as 
he grew up. His father was away all day at 
his shop, and his mother was often out; for 
she was a nurse. When he was five or six 
years old, he was often left alone. The 
door was shut, and he played in the house 
and the court until his father and mother 
came home at night. So his little chiton 
was often dirty, and his hair tangled. But 
he was a healthy, happy boy. He rolled 
his hoop about the court, or played knuckle- 
bones. His father had brought him little 
blocks of stone from the shop. He would 
build houses with them, or even chip at them, 
playing stonecutter. Sometimes he went 
with his father to the shop. There he played 



Socrates 225 

with the tools and wished that he could be a 
real stonecutter. Sometimes he went across 
the street to a sandal-maker's shop. Hip- 
pias, the sandal-maker, liked him. He said 
once: 

" O Socrates, you ask more questions than 
a woman. You surely will be a philosopher 
when you grow up." 

Soon after he was seven years old, Soph- 
roniscus took him on his knee one night. 
He smoothed his rough hair lovingly. 

"Socrates, you are seven years old now. 
When rich men's sons are as old as that, they 
begin to go to school. I haven't much money 
to spare, but I want my boy to be educated. 
When you become a man, you will go to the 
public assembly and vote for the laws. You 
will be president of the assembly some time, 
too. I want you to be a good citizen and a 
good president, and an ignorant man can't 
be that; so I have made arrangements for 
you to begin school to-morrow." 



226 Men of Old Greece 

"Oh, good! Oh, I'm glad, father! I'm 
going to school! Mother, mother, I'm 
going to school!" And off he ran to the 
hearth, where his mother was cooking. 

Soon he was back. 

"Then I must get up early in the morn- 
ing, mustn't I ?" 

"Indeed you must; school begins at 
sunrise." 

The next morning, in the gray, early 
light, Sophroniscus and Socrates were stand- 
ing on a street-corner near their house. 
Socrates had a little basket in his hand. 
He was dancing around his father and laugh- 
ing and talking about school. 

" When will they come, father ? The sun 
will be up in a little while. Oh, here they 
are, here they are!" 

Down the street came marching a line of 
boys. Almost every boy was walking be- 
side a man and holding his hand. The 
man carried a basket or a little bundle of 



Socrates 227 

tablets and books. Socrates took his father's 
hand and smiled up at him. 

"You are my pedagogue, father. You 
are better than any servant." 

"Yes, and here we go." And they fell in 
at the end of the line. 

As the column turned in at the school- 
house door, Socrates left his father, saying: 

" Good-by, father, I'll tell you all about it 
to-night." 

The building where they were turning 
in was a one-story white-plastered house. 
When they came into the court, Socrates 
turned to the boy behind him and said : 

"E-h-h! Pretty!" His eyes were shin- 
ing. 

The court was a large one. It was filled 
with oleanders, palms and rosebushes. 
Around the sides, in front of the room-doors, 
were covered walks. Columns, painted rose- 
color and white, held up the roof. In front 
of Socrates stood a marble statue of Athene. 



228 



Men of Old Greece 



Her robes were purple ; her shield and spear 
were gilded. 

A grave- looking man came into the court 
from one of the rooms. 

"Good-morning, boys. You are well 
again, Alcmenor? I see you have a new 




INTERIOR OF A GREEK SCHOOL 



chlamys, Pheido. And this is Socrates, our 
new boy? I am glad to see you, Socrates." 

He put his hand on the boy's shoulder. 

"But now it is time for lessons," he called 
out to them all. 

They went trooping into different rooms. 

Oh, that was a great day for Socrates! 



Socrates 229 

Everything was new and beautiful. He went 
into a room with several other little boys. 
They sat on long stone benches around 
the sides of the room. On the wall hung 
lyres and tibas. A young man sat on a chair 
in the front. He had a lyre on his knee. 

"Take your lyres," said the teacher. 

Each boy took a lyre from the wall. The 
plectrum hung from it by a ribbon. Socra- 
tes had never held a lyre before, but he had 
often seen other people play them. So he 
set it on his knee and put his left hand behind 
it, and took the plectrum in his right hand, 
just as he ought to do. The teacher looked 
at Socrates and said: 

"What is the new boy's name?" 

"Socrates." 

"Do you wish to learn to play the lyre, 
Socrates?" 

"Yes." 

"Why?" 

"Because it is beautiful." 



230 Men of Old Greece 

"Socrates, I wish you to study music, be- 
cause it will make you graceful and gentle. 
A man who knows nothing of music will be 
cruel and ungentlemanly. Now tune the 




BOYS WITH LYRE 



strings." And so the music-lesson went 
on. 

After a while the boys went into another 
room. There another master taught them 
how to make letters on wax tablets. 

"This is not so much fun as the music," 
thought Socrates. 



Socrates 231 

He heard the bigger boys in the next room. 
They were reciting poetry. 

"Some time I shall be able to do that," 
thought he, "and that will be fine." 

Late in the morning his class went into 
still another room. There they began to 
learn to count. At the end of that lesson 
school was over for the morning. Every- 
body ran laughing and shouting into the 
court. The pedagogues of the rich boys 
brought lunches and spread them out for 
their little masters. Socrates had only some 
slices of bread spread with honey. He had 
soon finished eating and was talking to 
Cleon, a boy near him. 

"Was it you reciting poetry this morn- 
ing?" 

"Yes; and I got my knuckles cracked 
because I didn't stand gracefully." 

"Oh, do you stand when you say it?" 

"Why, yes, boy. Don't orators stand 
when they speak ? And aren't we all trying 



232 



Men of Old Gm 



to be orators ? And mustn't orators be 
graceful?" 

"But you weren't making a speech." 
"No, of course not. I'm not old enough 
^^ nor wise enough yet. You 

have to know all of Homer 
and be able to chant it and 
play it before you can be 
an orator. But come on; 
there's the gong. We must 
go to the gymnasium." 

All the boys jumped up 
and formed in line again. 
They marched out and 
down the street a little way 
and into a small gymnasium. All the ped- 
agogues stopped at the door and waited on 
the outside. Socrates had often seen the 
outside of a gymnasium before, but never 
had been inside. He had dreamed about 
the fine games in there and had wished that 
he might peep in. But now he was really 




Socrates 233 

going to play there. While he was looking 
around in wonder, a man touched him 
sharply with a stick. 

" Off with your clothes," he said. 

Socrates ran into a dressing-room. He 
was back in a minute. 

"Throw this ball to Cleon," said the mas- 
ter, and gave him a ball. 

Little Socrates could not throw very well 
and was soon tired. But every minute or 
two the master was there and would 
say: 

"Throw it harder; run for it; put your 
hands closer together." 

When Socrates thought his arms would 
drop off with the ache, the master said : 

"Come here with these boys and jump." 

It gave his arms time to rest. After the 
jumping, came work with the dumb-bells. 
Then the master had him run around and 
around the gymnasium court. He showed 
him how to swing his arms and how to lift 



234 Men of Old Greece 

his feet high. The sun was just going down 
when he said: 

"That's all. Take your bath and go 
home." 

The boy ran to a great vase in the court. 
He threw water upon himself and rubbed it 
off with his hands. Then he rubbed his 
body with olive oil. He felt his muscles 
grow limber under it. At last he scraped 
himself with his strigil. He put on his 
chiton, and hung his strigil and oil vase 
at his girdle. He put a fresh fillet on 
his hair. 

When he came out of the gymnasium, 
there was his father. 

"O father! I am glad you are here." 

" Well, how did you like it, my boy ? " 

"Oh, it was fun! But I'm so tired!" 
And he leaned against his father. 

" Well, come on home ; you shall go to bed. 
In a few days it won't tire you so. What 
did you do?" 



Socrates 235 

"O father! wait till I am rested." 

Sophroniscus laughed. 

"All right, my man. It is good for you, 
even if it does tire you. It will make you 
strong and healthy and handsome and able 
to work for Athens. A man with stiff hands 
and legs will have a stiff tongue, too." 

And so Socrates lived for seven years, — 
school and gymnasium all day long; early to 
bed and early to rise. When he left school, 
the master said to him : 

"You do not play the lyre very well, but 
you can recite all of Homer after a fashion. 
You know how to use numbers, and you 
are always asking questions. You will find 
out a great many things for yourself." 

The master of the gymnasium said to him : 

"You were born ugly, but you are one of 
the strongest and toughest boys in the 
gymnasium." 

Socrates had left school early. He was to 
go to his father's shop and learn his trade. 



236 Men of Old Greece 

He worked away for several years. One 
day his father said to him: 

"You are not a bad stonecutter, but you 
don't do much work. You wander about 
the streets, talking to people. You listen to 
the wise men. Here at your work I often 
find you drawing figures in the dust. Why 
don't you stop this nonsense and go to 
work?" 

"I am trying to find what the sun is 
made of. I am wondering how the stars 
were made. I get to thinking about these 
things and forget to work." 

"A poor man has no business to bother 
about the sun or stars," growled his father. 

But Socrates earned enough to support 
himself. After a while he married and had 
a house of his own. He had a great many 
friends. His wife once said, 

"You are always bringing your friends 
here, when we have nothing to eat." 

"Ah, my dear, we feast on wise words." 



Socrates 



237 



And so they did. One of his friends once 
said, 

"I should rather talk with Socrates than 
eat a fine dinner." 




CONSULTING THE ORACLE AT DELPHI 

This same friend once went to the oracle 
at Delphi. Here Apollo had a temple and 
a priestess. Apollo knew all things and he 
was glad to help men with his wisdom. So 



238 Men of Old Greece 

people used to go to his temple to ask 
him questions through his priestess. And 
through this priestess he answered them. 

Socrates' friend said to the priestess : 

"Is there any one wiser than Socrates?" 

The priestess answered, 

"No." 

The friend was delighted. He thought 
to himself, 

"How proud Socrates will be when he 
hears it." 

He hurried back to Athens. He burst 
through the doorway of Socrates' house, 
calling, 

"Socrates! the oracle says that you are 
the wisest man in the world." 

Socrates turned and looked at him in 
wonder. 

"What do you say, Chserephon?" 

"The oracle says that you are the wisest 
man in the world." 

"I wise?" 



Socrates 239 

"Yes, you; and I think so, too." 

"But I am not wise. What does the 
oracle mean? The oracle always tells the 
truth. But how can this be true ? Is there 
nobody wiser than I am? Surely. But 
the oracle says not. I must find out. There 
are the officers of the city; they must be 
wiser. I will go and see whether they are 
not." 

The next day he went to the chief of the 
city. 

"You know how to rule the city, do you 
not?" asked Socrates. 

"Oh, yes!" answered the chief. 

" What kind of men ought to be officers ? " 

"Wise men." 

" But what are wise men ? " 

"Why, men who know a great many 
things." 

"What kind of things?" 

"The things we learn in school, — music 
and numbers and gymnastics." 



240 Men of Old Greece 

"Is that all?" 

"Why-y, no; they must be orators." 

"Why?" 

" O Socrates, you are trying to make a fool 
of me!" 

"No, indeed. I wish to know why an 
officer of the city ought to be an orator." 

" In order that he may make the people do 
as he pleases." 

"But what should he please to have them 
do?" 

"Why, different things." 

"Dance and turn somersaults?" 

Some of Socrates' friends were there. 
When he said this, they laughed at the offi- 
cer. This made the officer angry, and he 
said, 

"I'll not talk to you; you are making fun 
of me." 

And he always hated Socrates after that. 

Socrates said to his friends as they left 
the building: 



Socrates 241 

" I think that an officer ought to be a man 
who loves his city. He ought to know how 
to make men good and honest. I expected 
this man to be wise, but you see that he is 
not. Let us go to Meno, the maker of lyres. 
Surely he will be wise, since he makes such 
fine things." 

So they went to Meno, and Socrates said, 

"Meno, I hear that you make the finest 
lyres in Athens." 

"I think it is true," said Meno. 

"I suppose it is difficult to make a good 
lyre." 

"Yes, a lyre-maker must know a great 
many things." 

"Should you call a maker of lyres a wise 
man, then ?" 

"I should think so." 

"Then I ask you, Meno, you wise man, 
do you know what a good man is ?" 

"Why, yes; a good man is a man who 
does nobody any harm." 



242 



Men of Old Greece 



"Then a dead man is a good man." 
Socrates' friends laughed, and Meno 
flushed with anger. 

"No. Well, then, 
a good man is one 
who does people 
good." 

" But what is it to 
do people good?" 

" Oh, you ask too 
many questions. I 
haven't time to 
bother with you." 

Socrates turned 
to his friends. 

"I begin to see 
what the oracle 
means. These men 
think that they know things when they don't 
know them. Now, when I don't know a 
thing, I say so. For instance, if you said to 
me, ' How many grains of sand are there in 




APOLLO, WITH LYRE 



Socrates 243 

a cupful?' I would say, 'I don't know.' 
But these men would say, 'Five million,' 
or some such number. I think that is what 
Apollo calls being wise. But I will not be 
sure yet; I will try everybody. Perhaps I 
may teach people to be wise in this 
way." 

So he went about to everybody. He 
talked with people on the street-corners. 
He talked with people in their shops. He 
talked with people who were buying in the 
market-place. He talked with the young 
men who lounged in the barber-shops. He 
always found the same thing, — people pre- 
tended to know things that they did not 
know. He tried to show these people that 
they were not wise. After that they always 
hated him. 

But it was wonderful the way his friends 
loved him. He was always being asked to 
banquets. Many rich men asked him to be 
teacher for their sons. They offered him a 



244 



Men of Old Greece 



great deal of money to do it, but he always 
answered : 

" No, I am not wise enough to be a teacher; 
I am only trying to make men good and 
honest. Of course I 
can't take money for 
that, because I am doing 
it for Apollo." 

But there were some 
people who were very 
angry because their sons 
followed Socrates. They 
said: 

"We never know 
socrates where our sons are; we 

can't keep them at home or at school. This 
Socrates charms them like a siren." 

One of the young men who loved Socrates 
was named Alcibiades. He was a very 
handsome fellow, and a sort of a dandy. It 
was strange to see these two walking to- 
gether. Alcibiades had on a gay new hima- 




Socrates 245 

tion every day; his hair was curled and per- 
fumed. Socrates wore the same old gray 
robe winter and summer. He was usually 
barefooted; he was partly bald, and his gray 
hair was ragged. But Alcibiades said: 

"Socrates is like a pigskin wine bottle. 
How ugly on the outside! But oh, the 
sweetness and sparkle when it is opened!" 

One time the army of Athens marched 
away north to war. Alcibiades and Socra- 
tes were two of the soldiers. It was cold up 
there. The snow was deep. The soldiers 
seldom stirred out of camp. When they 
did go, they wore several cloaks and 
wrapped their feet in skins and felt. But 
Socrates still went barefooted and wore his 
one old himation. 

One morning, when the summer had 
come, the soldiers saw him standing in front 
of the camp. He was staring at the ground 
in deep thought. 

"What do you suppose he is thinking 



246 Men of Old Greece 

about?" asked the soldiers among them- 
selves. 

After an hour or two they looked again. 
He was still standing in the same position. 
They laughed and said, 

"Let us watch him." 

He did not move all day. At supper 
some of the soldiers said, 

"Why not take our blankets out there 
and see whether he stays all night ?" 

So they did. They laughed and joked 
about him until nearly midnight. They 
then fell asleep. When they awoke in the 
morning, there he was still, thinking as 
deeply as ever. An hour or so after the sun 
rose he raised his head, clapped his hands, 
and said, 

"Oh! now I see." 

Then he prayed to Apollo and walked 
away. 

"Did you ever think as hard as that?" 
asked one soldier of another. 



Socrates 247 

"No, indeed." 

"What do you suppose he was thinking 
about?" 

"Oh, I don't know. Some hard thing." 
In one battle Alcibiades and Socrates were 




YOUNG ATHENIAN SOLDIERS 



in the same rank. Alcibiades was fighting 
fiercely with one of the enemy. Finally the 
man turned and ran back into his own lines. 
Alcibiades ground his teeth and shouted, 



248 Men of Old Greece 

"I'll have you yet." 

He did not think of the danger, but ran 
after him. In a minute he was surrounded 
by the enemy. A rough soldier raised his 
spear and said, 

"Now, young dandy, say good-by to the 
sun!" and he threw his spear. 

It pierced Alcibiades' leg. As he fell, 
he cried, 

"Help! Socrates!' 

Socrates heard and ran to the place. 
Another soldier had his sword raised, ready 
to kill Alcibiades. 

"Ho there, you villain!" cried Socrates, 
and threw his spear. 

Down fell the soldier. Socrates jumped 
and stood over Alcibiades. He held his 
shield low and caught a blow that was meant 
for Alcibiades. He answered with a sword- 
thrust. So he fought until the rest of the 
army came and saved them. 

Some wicked men once made themselves 



Socrates 249 

officers of Athens. They knew that they 
had no right to do it, and they said to 
themselves : 

"A great many people hate us because we 
have done this thing. They will try to 
drive us out. We will kill all our enemies. 
Then we shall be safe." 

There was a certain enemy of theirs, 
named Leon. He lived several miles away. 
They said, 

"Let us send some other of our enemies 
after him. They are so afraid of us that 
they will bring him. Then they will be to 
blame for his death, and they will not dare 
to call us wicked any more." 

So they sent for five men. One of the five 
was Socrates. When they came into the 
building, the officers scowled at them and 
said, 

"Go and bring Leon to us." 

The five men came out of the door. Their 
faces were pale, all but Socrates'. The 



250 Men of Old Greece 

four started off. They looked around for 
Socrates. 

"Are you not coming ?" they asked. 

"Of course not." 

"But they will kill you." 

"It is better to die than to do a wicked 
thing." 

The four shuddered when he said "die." 

"Oh, we can't do that," they said. 

So on they went and brought Leon, as 
they were told to do. But Socrates went 
home about his own business. When his 
wife heard of it, she cried and said, 

"O Socrates! they will kill you." 

" But you would not have me do a shame- 
ful thing?" 

But these officers had no time to harm any 
one else. They were soon driven out of 
Athens. 

Socrates was now an old man — seventy 
years old. But he was as strong as ever. He 
still went about the streets talking to every- 




i'j. 



Socrates 151 

body. The young men still loved him and 
followed him about. But he had a great 
many enemies. These enemies were always 
talking among themselves about Socrates. 
They did not know exactly what to say 
about him, for they could not say, 

" I hate him because he proved that I was 
foolish." 

So they said all sorts of things: 

"He does not believe in the gods. He 
teaches our sons bad things and wastes their 
time." 

And one man said: 

"He taught my boy to make fun of me, 
his father, because I am a tanner." 

Now the real story was this: Anytus, a 
tanner, had a very bright young son. Soc- 
rates one day said to him: 

"You are a bright young fellow. You 
can do something besides tan leather; be an 
orator." 

So these people kept talking among them- 



252 Men of Old Greece 

selves and making themselves all the more 
angry. At last three men wrote out a charge 
and hung it up where everybody could see it, 
and had Socrates arrested. In a few days 
he must come to the court and be tried. 
His friends were frightened. They said: 

"Get a great lawyer. Have him write 
your speech. Get men to speak for you. 
We will give you all our money, if you will 
only use it." 

But Socrates only laughed. 

"Why, I have been getting my speech 
ready all my life," he said. 

"What do you mean?" they asked. 

"I have been living honestly all my life. 
Is not that the best way to defend myself?" 

At last the day came for the trial. The 
room was crowded with people. Socrates' 
friends stood with him before the jury. 
One of the men who had had him arrested 
stood up and said : 

"Socrates does not believe in the gods; 



Socrates 253 

he teaches our sons bad things. I say that 
he ought to be killed." 

Then he sat down, and it was Socrates' 
turn to speak. As he stood up, he smiled at 
the people. 

" My enemies say that I do not believe in 
the gods, but listen: I have spent all my 
life trying to explain to the people what 
the oracle meant. I said, 'This is what 
Apollo means : the wise man is the one who 
knows that goodness is better than riches or 
glory.' So I went about trying to make 
people understand. When I found a man 
lying in order to get rich, I said, 'Are you 
not ashamed to love money better than 
truth?' When I saw a man angry at his 
brother, I said : ' Do you not know that you 
ought to love your brother? You ought to 
do everything to make him happy.' 

" My friends, you have seen a gadfly on a 
horse. The horse pokes along, with his 
head down, his ears lopped, half asleep, 



254 Men of Old Greece 

until the fly alights on him and bites him. 
Then he wakes up and trots. Well, you 
Athenians are the horses, and I am the gad- 
fly. If I find you asleep when you ought to 
be working, I bite you and set you to work. 
If I see you going to eat a poison-weed, I 
bite you and drive you away. You ought 
to love me for that. But you are like lazy 
children, who don't like to be waked in the 
morning; so you say, 'Let us kill this gad- 
fly,' and you hit at me. 

"You say that I teach your boys bad 
things. I try to teach them to be honest 
and to love their city. Are these wicked 
things ? 

"You are saying to yourselves, 'Why 
doesn't he bring his wife and children here ? 
If they fell on their knees before us and 
cried and said, "Who will take care of us if 
you kill Socrates?" we might let him off. 
Other men always do that; why doesn't he ?' 
I will tell you why : I don't want you to let 



Socrates %55 

me go for pity. If you think I am wicked 
and ought to die, I want you to say so. I 
think it would be cheating if I made you 
sorry for me, and so coaxed you to do what 
you think to be wrong. If you think that 
you are doing right to kill me, I am willing 
to die. I am not afraid to die ; all that I am 
afraid of is to do a wicked thing." 

Then he sat down. The people who were 
standing in the courtroom whispered and 
scowled among themselves. The jury went 
out and voted. They came back, and one 
of them said: 

"We think that Socrates is guilty; two 
hundred and eighty-one against him, two 
hundred and twenty for him." 

Then the jury sat, waiting. Socrates had 
a right to make another speech. The man 
who had had him arrested had said, 
"We think that he ought to die." 
But Socrates now had a chance to say: 
"I do not want to die, but I will suffer 



256 Men of Old Greece 

some other punishment; I will pay a fine. 
Will you take it and let me go ?" 

The men of the jury were thinking: 

" He will offer to pay a great sum of money 
or to leave Athens. We will agree to that; 
he need not die." 

Socrates rose to speak again : 

"Well, you want me to offer some punish- 
ment for myself. What shall it be ? Some- 
thing that I deserve, of course. Now I say 
that I have been the best friend of Athens. 
When a man wins a foot-race, you feed him 
at the public building for thanks. I say 
that I have done you more good than I could 
by winning a foot-race, so I say, ' Feed me 
at the public building with your other great 
men.' 

" Do you want me to say that I will leave 
Athens ? Think of me, an old man, trying 
to live in some new place. I was never in 
my life in any other city. I know the streets 
and buildings of Athens as I know my own 



Socrates 251 

fingers. I can walk blindfolded through 
the city; I love it as I love my mother. I 
would not live in any other place; I should 
always be wishing for Athens. No, I can- 
not leave Athens. 

"Do you want me to pay a fine? But I 
am a poor man ; I have only enough money 
to buy bread and clothes." 

When he said that, three or four of his 
friends leaned toward him. 

" Socrates, you may have all of our money. 
We are rich men; take all we have and buy 
yourself off," they said. 

Socrates smiled and said to the jury: 

"My friends offer me their money to use; 
but if I should pay a fine, it would be the 
same as saying, 'Yes, I am guilty.' But I 
am not guilty, so I will not pay a fine ; neither 
will I leave Athens. But I will consent to be 
fed at the public building with the heroes. 
What will you do with me ?" 

Then he sat down. The jury scowled at 



258 Men of Old Greece 

him more than ever. They sneered and 
said: 

"He thinks that it is a good joke about 
being fed with the heroes. We will show 
him what we think of him." 

So they voted again and said : 

" We think he ought to die." 

That was really the end of it; but Socrates 
arose again and said: 

" May I talk to you a little while ? The 
officers have not yet come to take me away. 
"Do you think that you have done me any 
harm ? You have not. I am glad, think- 
ing of what will happen to me. When I die, 
I shall go to another country. There every- 
body is happy and kind. I shall see all the 
good men that ever lived. I can talk with 
them as long as I please. I can sit and chat 
with Achilles and Odysseus and Homer and 
Leonidas. I can ask them all about that 
great war at Troy, and the fight with the 
Persians. Ah, I shall be happy there. But 



Socrates 259 

here are the officers; I must go. Good-by, 
my friends!" 

He came down the steps of the building. 
A young man who loved him came to him 
weeping. 

" O Socrates ! " he said, " it makes me weep 
to see you die and not deserve it." 

Socrates put his hand on the young man's 
head and smiled. 

"Should you rather have me deserve to 
die ? You are a funny fellow. " 

So Socrates went to his prison. He was 
there about a month. Every day his friends 
came to talk with him. He was as kind and 
as happy as ever. One morning his old 
friend, Crito, came before sunrise and found 
Socrates asleep. He sat by the bed for a 
long time. At last Socrates awoke. 

"Why, Crito! You here so early ? How 
long have you been here?" 

"An hour or so." 

"Why didn't you wake me?" 



260 Men of Old Greece 

"I have been watching you. You looked 
so happy in your sleep that I didn't want 
to wake you. I have bad news to tell." 

"Oh, you mean that I must die to-day?" 

"Yes, or to-morrow." 

"Why, Crito, this is not bad news." 

"Not bad for you, but for your friends. 
Socrates, I have given money to the door- 
keeper of the prison. He will let you go 
away. Won't you go, Socrates?" 

"Run away like a thief, Crito? And, 
besides, where could I go ?" 

"I have rich friends in Thrace. They 
have asked you to live with them. You 
could live like a king." 

"But I don't want to live like a king, and 
I don't want to live anywhere but in Athens. 
But do you think it would be right for me to 
go, Crito?" 

"Of course I do." 

"But Crito, suppose the Laws should 
come to me and say : ' What are you doing, 



Socrates 261 

Socrates ? Do you remember when you were 
eighteen years old? You came before all 
the men of Athens and said: "I promise 
always to obey the laws." You didn't have 
to promise that. You might have said: "I 
don't like Athens or its laws; I will go to 
some other city." But you did not say that. 
You said: "I love Athens; I love her laws; 
I will obey them; I am their son." ' Didn't I 
say that, Crito?" 

."Yes." 

"Ought I not to keep my promise?" 

"I suppose so." 

"Then, besides, the Laws would say to 
me, 'Ought not a son to obey his father?' 
'Yes,' I would say. 'Always?' they would 
ask. 'Yes, always.' 'But we, the Laws, 
are your father. Ought you not, then, to 
obey us ?' Shouldn't I have to say yes, 
Crito?" 

"I am afraid so." 

"Perhaps the Laws would say this, too, 



262 Men of Old Greece 

'Have you ever been in the army?' I 
should say: 'Yes!' 'Did you obey your 
captains?' 'Yes.' 'Always?' 'Yes.' 'Even 
when he said, "Go fight, and die if it 
is necessary?"' 'Yes.' ' Suppose you had 
run away before the battle. What would 
men have called you?' 'A coward.' 'But 
we, the Laws, are your captain. Now we 
say, "Die." What ought you to do ?' What 
do you say, Crito ? Ought I to obey, then, 
and not run away ?" 

"I am afraid so, Socrates." 

"Well, then, come, cheer up! Let us do 
our duty." And Socrates smiled at Crito. 

On the next morning all Socrates' best 
friends came to the prison. They came as 
soon as the doors were open. They talked 
all day long. Toward evening Socrates 
said, 

" Well, bring in the poison." 

They brought it, and he drank it. The 
last thing he said was: 



Socrates 



263 



"Crito, we owe a cock to iEsculapius; 
pay it, therefore, and do not neglect it." 

iEsculapius was the god of healing. 
Whenever a Greek was cured of a sickness, 
he knew that iEscul- 
apius had done it, and 
he took a thank-offer- 
ing to his temple. Now 
Socrates expected death 
to cure him of ignor- 
ance and of wicked- 
ness. In the land of 
the dead he would learn 
much, and he would 
be happy. So he 
wished to thank the god 
of healing as other men 
did. His last words were really the Greek 
way of saying, 

"Oh! I shall be very happy talking with 
Achilles and Leonidas and the others." 




AESCULAPIUS 






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